


As Dark Longs For Day

by Yahtzee



Category: Ladyhawke (1985), X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Epistolary, First Time, Longing, Middle Ages, Multi, POV First Person, POV Third Person Limited, POV Third Person Omniscient, Pastiche, Romance, Sadism, Shapeshifting, Swords & Sorcery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-27
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-15 04:10:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 34,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A daring young thief escapes from the wicked bishop's dungeons, thinking herself free -- until she encounters a rider with a black horse, a tame hawk and a dark secret. And who is this mysterious young man who only appears at night, accompanied by a protective wolf? </p><p>Yes, it's the XMFC/Ladyhawke pastiche the whole world's been clamoring for!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Thief - Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has all the rigorous historical accuracy of the original "Ladyhawke," which is to say, none at all. I did move it to England so everybody's names would make sense, though. 
> 
> Thanks to Rheanna and Counteragent for reading this in-progress!
> 
> ***

“I know this is a strange thing to ask, my Lord,” I whispered, sewer water rushing past my knees and the first sunlight I’d seen in a month flickering overhead. “Especially as it’s the precise opposite of what I asked you for two years ago. But if you could see fit to make my breasts smaller, right now, that would be a great help.”

I pressed my hands outward against the narrow stone passage that led upward to freedom – via the smallest hole you ever saw a human being fit through. But fit through it I would. The alternative was dying in the dungeons of the Bishop Sebastian. Didn’t know if he’d leave me in there to rot of starvation or fetch me forth to be hanged, and didn’t intend to find out. Already I’d slithered through vents and tunnels they thought nobody was small enough – or desperate enough – to manage. I was on the verge of being the very first prisoner ever to escape the bishop, and no trifle like this was going to stop me. 

As I climbed upward, bare feet slippery against mold-covered rock, I muttered to the Lord – under my breath, but of course He can always hear – “Just think of the benefits to you, Lord. Smaller breasts for me means less attention from men. Fewer opportunities for me to sin. And as I’m weak and liable to fall prey to every opportunity for sin I’m given, wouldn’t it make sense to not to give me so many?”

He must have heard me, for I found that with a great deal of twisting and turning, I was able to push myself out and through. Like a fish I flopped onto the ground, laughing out loud for joy. The birds I’d named myself after circled overhead in the sky.

I was free. Free! From the bishop’s keep! They’d talk about “the Raven” for a hundred years or more. Sing songs about me around the fire. I liked the idea.

Breathing hard, I rested my hands against my heaving chest – then spoke to the Lord once again. “I see that in your infinite mercy you chose to make the passageway bigger and leave my breasts the same. Don’t worry, Lord. I’ll put them to good use.”

Not that any man would be paying attention to them, or me, in my state – not nearly so pert as I was before the bishop’s guards threw me into the dungeons for poaching. (The trap wasn’t mine – I was stealing the hare from the one who’d truly poached it, and in so doing teaching him a lesson – but the soldier who caught me at it had no head for the finer points of the law.) Not much to eat in the dungeon, and none of it good. And I’d swum out through a sewer. Any man who’d come after me now was one I’d as soon have no part of, least of all the part he’d be offering. 

I decided to have a wash in the next stream I came across and then see what the day might offer in terms of clothing, food or money left unattended. 

And I admit, after a few lonely weeks in the dungeon, surrounded only by slatterns and paupers of my own sex, the thought of finding a good-looking fellow once I was back to myself – well, it was pleasing.

But isn’t it always the way? You go forever without meeting a man, and then you meet two at once.

 


	2. The Falconer - Part One

Erik awoke some hours after sunrise – far later than he usually slept. Disappointed by the brilliant light bathing his small campsite, he tossed aside his blanket, swore, and went for his clothing. But he paused when he saw how neatly everything was folded, how it lay upon a high rock so that it wouldn’t get damp on the ground. Atop the pile were a few scattered flowers, the tiny meadow blooms countryfolk called “eye-bright.”

He ran one finger along the fringe of tiny petals, delicate against his callous-roughened skin. For a moment he remembered tracing the edge of long eyelashes the same way, dark upon a pale cheek. The woods were still, and he did not breathe. Far overhead he heard a hawk’s cry, and when he looked up he saw it circling – dark wings like blades against the clouds.

Then he set aside the flowers and got dressed.

Erik checked his horse’s saddlebags and found he still had some oatcakes and the apple left over. He didn’t bother eating; his belly was full. Had his last meal been grouse or rabbit? No matter. He could save these provisions for later, ideally tonight, when they might be more greatly needed.

Most men named their steeds after great soldiers of antiquity or figures from the Bible. Erik’s horse was named Blackbird. Sometimes people smirked when they heard this childish soubriquet, apt though it was given his horse’s gleaming black coat. (They always did this behind Erik’s back, however; it did not take a long acquaintance to see that smirking at this man to his face would not end well.) But then they realized that he was a falconer, one clearly dedicated to his winged hunter, and thought no more of his horse’s odd name.

By now, Erik knew, he was close to riding into country where he might be remembered. How long before he was recognized? Two days, perhaps three. He shuddered at the thought of the danger they approached – though it was another he feared for, not himself. 

Cloak over his shoulders, Erik slid into the saddle. He lifted the hand he always kept gloved in heavy leather, wondering whether his hawk would fly to him. Some mornings it did; some it didn’t, preferring the winds above. Today, however, the hawk descended immediately. The weight settled onto Erik’s arm, talons gleaming against the glove. With his free hand Erik stroked the bird’s head, just once. It was important to show affection, to strengthen the bond, because memories were murky when caught in the dull cobwebs of animal minds. 

The hawk ruffled its wings, settled its weight from one foot to another and blinked slowly – content, or what passed for it. Erik transferred the bird to his shoulder and began to ride.

By midafternoon he was on the outskirts of a small village he faintly recalled; there was a place where travelers could water their horses and have a meal. Erik decided a visit was worth the risk of being recognized. When he saw a small contingent of the bishop’s guard at the inn, Erik pulled up the hood of his cloak and hoped they would be more interested in their ale than their fellow travelers; this hope was rewarded. He had coins enough for a bowl of fine fish stew – if only there were a way to get more and keep it hot for tonight! But there was good cheese, too, and he bought a hunk of it to hide in the saddlebags as a surprise.

As he drank a cup of cider and finished his stew, Erik’s ears pricked when someone shouted, “Now here’s a celebration!”

Stupid to think that had anything to do with him. It wasn’t even one of the guards speaking; it was a young woman with goldenrod hair, gleaming and damp on her shoulders. She wore a dark-green peasant dress that fit her ill, pulling against her ample breasts and hips in a way that had attracted the guards’ attention far more than her shout. But what now fascinated all who watched her was the moneybag she jangled at her belt, swelled out with coin. 

“A round of ale for everyone here!” the girl continued. “And whiskey for anyone who will drink the health of the only one ever to escape the dungeons in the bishop’s keep.”

Erik’s ears pricked again, this time for better reason.

One of the guards – Peter of Halborough, Erik remembered, dumb as an ox but nearly the size – scoffed at her. “No man has ever escaped the bishop’s keep.”

“No man – but one woman has, and you look at her now!” The fool girl took a bow.

Peter of Halborough stood and drew arms, as did the rest of the guards. With their cloaks and capes, the girl had not recognized them before; she did now, and her pretty face paled.

Erik slowly ran his last bit of bread along the inside of the bowl, to scoop up the last of the fish stew. Then he carefully put the cheese in his bag and settled his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“You’re a thief, then,” said Peter of Halborough. “The one called the Raven. The bishop’s been wanting you back, girl – or just your head.” 

She leaped upon one of the tables, then to the roof, nimble as anything – but the thatch was weak beneath her feet, and within moments she was scrambling for purchase and finding none. As she slid down, the guards laughed and began poking at her feet with their swords. They meant to toy with this one before killing her.

Erik thought he would have interfered even if there were no benefit in it for him.

Quickly he stood and drew. The sound of sword on scabbard made them wheel around; the sight of his face stilled their tongues.

“I was once the captain of your guard,” Erik said. “By whatever loyalty you may still have for me, I ask you to stand aside, and leave this one alone.” 

“You deserve no loyalty,” snarled Peter of Halborough. “You are demon-cursed!” 

By the sword, then. 

The battle was swift. These men had not been among the best fighters of the guard when Erik left, and their new captain had been lax in their training. Only once did Erik falter as he slashed and sliced – when Peter’s kick caught him square in the gut and he stumbled back – but at that moment the hawk swooped down, claws raking across Peter’s face and drawing blood. Within an instant Erik had matched that blood on his sword.

One of the younger guards fled. Erik considered pursuing him but did not bother. Word of his arrival would reach the bishop in advance, regardless. It might as well come from that poor lad as any other.

To his surprise, though, that guard wasn’t the only one running; the girl he’d risked his life to rescue was even now dashing away across the fields without a word of thanks or even a look back.

Erik swung onto Blackbird and rode hard; heavy hoofbeats pounded the earth as they closed in. The hawk even sliced the air ahead of the girl, making her stop short and yelp, just as Erik came up behind her and scooped her onto the saddle in front of him.

For his pains he got a slap in the face. 

Blackbird reared, and Erik struggled to control the horse again as the girl clung to him. The moment his horse was steady, she tried to push free, but Erik grabbed her at the collar as if he were a mother cat taking hold of the scruff of a kitten’s neck. “What are you doing?” he said. “Didn’t you see that I helped you?”

“Thanks kindly, much appreciated, and now I’ll be going.” She tried to pull away, to no avail.

“Calm yourself before you spook my horse and get us both killed.”

That quieted the girl, at least for the moment. She turned then and looked at him for the first time; her gaze gentled, and he remembered that once he had been thought a handsome man. “Sir, why did you save me?”

“To spite the bishop, for one.”

She grinned. “Then we’ll be friends for sure.”

Erik thought he might like this one despite himself. “That, and also to serve my own purposes.”

Her smile was harder then, but didn’t falter. “I’ll have you know I’m an honest woman, sir.”

“I did not mean – ”

“You give me the money up front, and never fear, I’ll deliver.”

He blinked. “Not _that_ purpose, you wench.”

“Then you’re an uncommon sort of man.”

“That I am. What’s your name?”

“Raven,” she said, and he thought it was a lie, but the sort of lie that was well on its way to being the truth.

“I am surrounded by birds,” he replied. “You are Raven, this horse is Blackbird, and you have seen my hawk, I think. My name is Erik, and I lead this flock toward the bishop’s keep.”

Raven’s smile finally faltered. “Back to the keep?”

“You said it yourself. You’re the only one who has ever broken out. That means you can tell me how to break back in.”

“Oh, no – ”

“Oh, yes. You owe me your life, Raven. Does that mean nothing to you?”

“Not so much as my life itself, and do you know what that’s worth if I go back to the keep?”

“About what it’s worth if I turn you back into the village wearing a stolen dress and carrying a stolen moneybag.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“No, you won’t.” He circled her waist with his free hand and drew her sharply against him. “I have unfinished business with the bishop. You’re taking me to the keep, and within it. If I have to drag you kicking and screaming. Do you hear me?”

She tossed her hair. “You don’t have to be nasty about it. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that charm does wonders? … No. They must not have done, or you’d try it sometime. But that’s all right. I’m charming enough for the both of us.”

The hawk settled on Erik’s shoulder and cocked its head, regarding her. Though he knew it was mere animal curiosity, Erik couldn’t help imagining that the bird, too, was torn between chagrin and laughter. 


	3. In The Room of Words - The First Week

On the hearth, charcoal scrapes left by wood not quite ash: _Where are we? What is this place?_

 

On a wax tablet left by the bed the next morning: _This is my family home. I could think of no other place we could be safe._

 

In the margins of the wax tablet that night: _Why does that witch hold us prisoner?_

 

On the wax tablet, the morning after: _That isn’t a witch. That’s Moira. She’s a friend. Be kind – you frightened her._

_Hold the tablet by the fire to melt the wax, and you can write fresh each day._

 

On the wax tablet that night: _You might have used this from the beginning instead of dragging me into the hinterlands with no explanation. Or did you not care to ask my counsel?_

 

The next morning: _I didn’t know you could read and write. We know so little of each other, still, despite – this._

_I only meant to offer shelter. This is my fault, and your fate is my responsibility. But you are free to leave me if you wish. You could not be blamed._

 

That night: _It is the bishop who has done this, he and no other. It is his soul alone that I damn to hell._

_There is nowhere else to go._


	4. The Thief -- Part Two

Now, I am not the sort of woman who goes about offering herself to men for a price. When I said all that to Erik, I had quite another design in mind. He’s a handsome strapping man, just the sort I like, and I intended to lie with him one way or another. If he were the sort willing to pay for what I would give for free, I reasoned, why not make myself a bit of profit in the bargain? 

But he would not be tempted, not even when I leaned upon his shoulder, or asked him in a girlish voice what battles he had been in, or any of the stupid rot men usually like to hear. His hands stayed right where they ought, and when I wriggled against him he said I was no horsewoman and I’d have to walk. So no rides were to be had in any sense.

Had I found some stray priest who had unaccountably taken up arms? Or had I lost my charms in the bishop’s dungeon? Worst luck, I was put on foot just as we began going up a very steep hill, and all my grumblings and whining would not persuade Erik to have me on Blackbird again.

We walked on until about an hour before twilight, when we came across a peasant’s hut. I did not like the look of the man who lived there – he had a mean cast to his eyes. But Erik offered him gold for a place in his barn, a tether for Blackbird for the night, and water and bread, and so we had a place to stay for the night.

“He’ll come in the night and try to steal your money,” I said. “And mine too.” The bag of gold coins had been in my possession for some hours then, so I felt quite as if I had always had it.

“You think everyone is a thief, then.”

“If they’re hungry enough, yes, and that one’s hungry.” I’ve been starving long enough to know that look from the inside out.

“That man will leave us alone if he knows what’s good for him,” Erik replied as he finished rubbing down Blackbird. “Even if he doesn’t – we’ve nothing to fear.”

I decided to argue no further. What did it matter? As soon as this strange, saturnine fellow fell asleep, I intended to take my leave. No fun was to be had with him, whether by day or by night, and while I was most assuredly grateful for his rescue, I didn’t see how that indebted me to go back into the bishop’s keep. That was suicide. How could you repay an owed life by committing suicide? Made no sense at all.  

As Erik put aside his gloves and belt and such, I amused myself looking at his things. They were well-made, good quality – precisely the kind of item I always preferred to steal. (Not that I planned to steal from Erik. He was my savior, and surely I owed him that much; besides, he’d have caught me.) Anyone would trade anything for boots so sturdy, or a cloak so thick; he hadn’t always been a wanderer, this one. Someone used to pay him well for his services. His sword was old, battle-scarred and –stained, but still sharp. Etched into the hilt was a star of unusual shape.

“That there,” I said, pointing at it. “Isn’t that a Hebrew sign?”

Erik never ceased his preparations; he seemed to have a bit of a ritual about getting ready for bed. He never even looked at me, only once at his hawk, which perched comfortably upon a high beam. “What would a girl like you know about the Hebrews?”

“I know the king cast them out, because they were all usurers.” 

“Then you know nothing.” 

It occurred to me that as one who had herself fallen afoul of the law, it would behoove me to consider that others, too, might be unjustly condemned. But I knew one thing for sure. “There aren’t any more in England, though. They’ve been gone a hundred years or so.”

“Did you know, in York, many of them hid in a synagogue?” Erik began laying out his blankets to make a pallet. “They were told to convert or be slaughtered. Most committed suicide rather than betray their god. But a few emerged when they were promised their lives. Mostly parents trying to save children. The crowd of good Christians decided then no conversions were desired. They killed the Jews where they stood, the little children too.” He smiled then, and his smile was a fearsome thing. “Tell me, was the desire to convert enough to save the Jews’ souls?”

I knew better than to answer such a question. “If it was done so, it was an unchristian thing.”

He took no heed of this. “In other places, long enough before the final edict, some Jews were allowed to convert and preserve their children’s lives. Yet they told their children what had gone before, who they had been. And those children told their children. I think few hear the stories now. But there are those who remember.” With that, Erik sat upon the ground. “You should make your bed on the far side of the barn.”

_Far side. Barn._ This was more a lean-to than any proper structure, and the farthest point from Erik was too close to where the cow did her fouling. “What, do you not trust your virtue any nearer me?”

“I have no virtue to trust or distrust. But I dream dark dreams, and I have been known to strike at those closest to me. Do not come close, Raven. Do not even look at me. You would only put yourself in danger.”  

I’d be gone in a couple of hours anyway. “Maybe the stink of cow pies isn’t so bad.”

He laughed, which seemed to surprise him as much as me. “Go to sleep, duckling.” 

“ _Raven_.” 

The only response to this was a grunt.

Though I lay down thinking merely to give him the impression I intended to sleep, I was more tired than I’d realized. Dungeon escape, the fight with the guards, trying to keep up with Erik and Blackbird on foot – no surprise I was weary. As it was, when I first stirred, the night was black as pitch and the moon was high.

Erik might have dreamed violently, but he slept quietly; I couldn’t hear him snore or stir. In the darkness I couldn’t see him – which meant, no doubt, that he could not see me. So I took hold tight of my moneybag to keep it from jingling and carefully crept out of the barn.  

As I tiptoed away, to my surprise I felt a flicker of guilt, an emotion which troubles me little. But that was ridiculous. Erik’s desire to sneak into the bishop’s keep was pure madness; by not being there to help him do it, I was more or less saving his life. Returning the favor. He’d appreciate that someday.

I was feeling much better about the whole thing until I came to the big elm tree and the farmer stepped out  -- ax in hand.

“Give me the gold,” he rasped. His eyes were wild. Clearly he intended to finish the night with more money and fewer guests.

I turned and ran. “Erik!” I screamed. He deserved a warning. “Erik, get out of here!”

But the night was dark, and my dress caught on the bushes and twigs, and the farmer had the speed of desperation. He was fast on me when suddenly a pale shape sprang from the shadows.

The farmer fell to the ground, shrieking. Whatever relief I might have felt vanished when I saw what had his throat in its jaws. 

_Wolf._

Huge, this wolf was, and his thick pelt was the pale grey-white of frost. It snarled viciously as it tore at my attacker; I could smell the hot spray of blood in the air.

Slowly I tried to back away, but when I moved, the wolf raised its head and snarled. Its teeth shone despite the blackness of the night. I braced myself against the elm, wondering if I could climb it fast enough to save myself –

\--but then a gentle voice said, “Shhhh, now.”

I turned to see a man I’d never beheld before; his face was one I would have remembered always. He was even paler than the wolf, so much so that I first thought he might be a ghost. But his lips were dark, and his smile kind. 

To my astonishment, he knelt and held out a hand to the wolf. “Be calm. You’ve put things right. All is well.” 

Even more astonishing: The wolf came to him, tame as a dog, and lowered its great fearsome head to be touched. When the man buried his fingers in the thick pale fur, both he and the beast closed their eyes. 

Then the man whispered, “Right, then. Off you go. Find a good rabbit.” He petted the wolf’s flank, and it dashed into the woods with hardly a rustle. Only after it had vanished did this stranger turn to me. “You must be Raven.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Erik used a twig to scratch a note for me in the dirt. We’ve been out of ink for ages.” He smiled. “I’m Charles.”

Now, as I’d said before, Erik was precisely the sort of man that intrigued me. Charles wasn’t that sort at all – slight where Erik was sturdy, pale where Erik was swarthy. But he had despite his pallor a face so beautiful I felt as if I didn’t even want to blink, as if even that was too long a time without seeing him. “Are you a friend of his?”

“Nearly the only friend he has. Just as he is nearly the only friend I have.”

“How did you find us?”

“I always manage it. Now, where were you heading this evening?” 

I ought to have lied to him, told him I was off to have a pee in the woods, but he had the sort of face you didn’t want to lie to. “Anywhere but here.”

“Why? Erik might have been brusque with you, but I’m sure he wasn’t unkind.”

“He wants me to break back into the dungeons of the bishop,” I confessed. My voice shook. Most of the time I pretend to be brave, even to myself, but suddenly I was past pretending. “I only just escaped. I don’t know why he’d want to do such a mad thing as go in of his own free will, but I know I never want to return. Not ever. I’d rather die.”

Charles held out his hand, just as he had to the wolf; my fingers closed around his. So easily was I tamed. Yet perhaps he’d taken my hand for his comfort rather than mine, because his voice was unsteady when he spoke. “For what crime were you jailed?”

“Poaching.”

“Bishop Sebastian hates poachers on his land. Hates anyone taking something he thinks is his – whether or not he has any true right to it. And those whom the bishop hates pay dearly. But there are worse fates.”

“Like what?” 

“Bad enough if he hates you. Worse if he thinks he loves you. So very much worse. Because real love has no place in his rotting heart, and what burns there instead is more destructive than any flame. Those who he hates he merely kills. Those he believes he loves – for them, Sebastian reserves the torments of hell.”  

I whispered, “What did he do to you?”

Charles didn’t answer. “Will you stay until morning, at least? Talk with Erik and tell him what you know about the dungeons? That might be enough to help him.”

“Better yet if he doesn’t try to break in. The bishop will kill him for certain.”

“I’m not so sure.” Charles’ gaze was distant now, as if he could make out shapes in the night that were beyond my ken. Somehow I knew that – no matter what had been done to this man – he still had something left to fear. “The bishop hates Erik, too. There will be no swift death, no merciful end. What waits for Erik in the bishop’s keep if he fails – I can’t imagine it, and neither can you. I’ve tried to make him turn back. He won’t. This will happen, no matter what you or I do. But if you could – just help Erik – in whatever way you could – it would mean much. I am … so deeply afraid for him.”

He had charmed the wolf with some unearthly enchantment; perhaps he had charmed me too. Already I had swayed as close to Charles as I would to a lover. But really I think it was just that I was so bloody tired that the thought of running anywhere was becoming less appealing by the second – and the thought of sleep seemed far sweeter. “Well. I could speak to him, I guess. Talk Erik through how to get in and out. That would do, wouldn’t it?” 

“It’s worth a try. Thank you, Raven. Now come on, let’s get you back to sleep.” 

Charles walked me back into the barn, careful to stand between me and the farmer’s still-steaming corpse. He’d seen how tired I remained even before I had; his hand had me at the elbow, steadying my steps. When I lay down, he wandered over toward Erik’s saddlebags. I thought of warning him not to go through Erik’s things –it had been made clear that this would be seen as thievery even if nothing were taken, a most unfair rule – but then I thought as they were friends, probably Charles knew what liberties he could and couldn’t take.  Certainly he didn’t stir; there wasn’t so much as a murmur or a rustle from the stall where he had laid down.

From Erik’s saddlebag, Charles pulled out something – a cheese, I thought. He smiled softly, as though he’d just received a gift.  

As sleep claimed me, I saw that Charles was not looking at me as he ate, but out at the forest into which the wolf had run. 


	5. The Room Of Words -- The Second Month

Upon the wax tablet, left by the bedside: _If you are going to stay here, you must try harder with Moira._

Left on the other side of the bed the next morning: _Are you threatening me now? Would you cast me out?_

Left on the pillow: _Is that what you wish – to leave, without guilt? Why else would you bully and berate the woman who brings us food and lies to the rest of the servants for us? Were you always so cruel, and I simply didn’t see?_

No answer for four days.

Then: _If I am cruel I have become so in answer to cruelty. The bishop changed my form – this I knew – but I had not realized he had fashioned me into another version of himself. If I had, I would have taken my own life._

The next morning, on the windowsill: _Do not harm yourself, I beg you. I know the temptation – this whole winter I have thought of it. But I will not leave you alone in this. Please do not abandon me, abandon your life. We must be strong._  

That evening, on the same windowsill, carved beneath the morning message as though taking the wax tablet to the fire was too much effort: _Why live?_

The next morning, at the foot of the bed: _To spite the bishop._  

In the evening: _Reason enough._


	6. The Falconer -- Part Two

The girl had looked worn through by the evening’s end, so in the morning Erik readied himself and Blackbird while allowing her to sleep on. Only in the final minutes did he nudge her leg with his foot. “All right, you slugabed. Stir yourself.”

Raven sat up, bits of hay caught in her hair. She blinked sleepily as she looked around the barn. “Where’s Charles?”

Jealousy caged Erik’s heart, bound and confined it and made it small. “You saw him, did you?”

“He was here when I woke up last night. When – ” Her eyes grew wide. “The wolf! The farmer was coming to rob us – to kill us – and then this pale wolf – ”

“I found the body this morning. Easy enough to see what happened. Anyone could tell he fell prey to a wolf.” Erik studied her. “What did Charles say?”

“Did he not tell you? Is he outside, or – ”

She had heard Charles’ voice, seen his face, spent long minutes or even hours in his company, and yet to her it was nothing. Erik snapped, “He’s ridden ahead. We won’t see him again today.”

“But – ” 

“If you want to ride on Blackbird instead of walking for another day, I suggest you ready yourself now.”

That entire day they rode in silence, the hawk circling high overhead, enjoying the freedom of flight. Occasionally it would strike into the field after a mouse or some such. From this distance Erik could not tell whether the hawk’s hunting was successful. Did it make much difference, such little scraps of meat? Erik couldn’t imagine that it did. 

Raven’s charms showed to better advantage when she was silent, Erik thought. No wonder he hadn’t particularly noticed them before. Her strong arms gripped him from behind, and he could feel the softness of her breasts against his back.

How easy this would have been two years ago. A fine sunny day, a buxom girl who had shown her interest, and an obliging field of high grasses just waiting to be flattened down and covered with his cloak to make a bed. He would have taken Raven two, three times, right there in the sunlight, and it would have been only the pleasantest of games to them both.

But two years ago he had met Charles, and love would never be a mere game again.

At day’s end Raven had said not a dozen words together. Erik thought it likely this was the first time this phenomenon had been observed since her infancy.  A camp, tonight, instead of seeking shelter: While he was more than willing to trust his resources, and Charles’, to preserve his own safety, from now on he would have to think of the girl, too. Besides, by now the word would have spread of his arrival. Bishop Sebastian himself probably knew by now. What did he think? Was he afraid? No. More likely he was laughing.

Let him laugh while he still could. 

Besides, the only village within an easy ride was Faxton, and Erik had his reasons for avoiding that place.

The hawk descended to a nearby tree branch and cocked its head that way and this, bright eyes following Erik’s every move.

Raven stood there watching Erik see to Blackbird until she blurted out, “I should speak to you about the dungeons.”

“Yes, you should. I need to know exactly how you got out.” 

“Through a sewer tunnel – but you don’t understand. The opening was scarce big enough for me to get through, though I had prayed for the Lord’s deliverance. A man of your size will never fit.”

Discouraging, but – “There may be more openings into the tunnel. You shall help me search when we arrive.”

“I can’t,” she said, the words coming in a rush. “I can’t go back there. Charles said I didn’t have to.”

“Did he, now?” Charles had found a way to meddle in his own absence. “Well, you’re not dealing with him. You’re dealing with me. And I say you’re taking me within the bishop’s keep.”

“He’ll have you killed, or worse!” 

“Not if I kill him first.”

That silenced her, though only for a moment. Raven’s eyes widened, and Erik could see there the reflection of his own hatred. She wanted the bishop dead nearly as much as he did, and for less cause. He rarely met anyone with deeper reserves of fury than himself. Did he admire that, or draw back? 

After a few moments, however, she said, “You won’t be able to do it. His guards – ”

“I trained them. I can take them. It’s his fortress I need more knowledge of, and that’s what you’re going to give me. The bishop will have reinforced it since I was there last, and I don’t intend to be caught in any of his newer traps.” 

Raven tried another tack. “The bishop won’t be around much longer to trouble us, anyway. He’s supposed to go to Avignon soon. Rumor has it he’s being made a cardinal, which makes you wonder what the good Lord in his wisdom is telling the pope.”

“Sebastian leaves for London, and thus onward on his journey, at the end of this week.” Erik had received the word with little time to spare; Charles’ reluctance had cost them days more. Yet still there was time for him to do what he must. “After that he will be untouchable. But I intend for him to miss his ship.”

The hawk fluttered his feathers, suddenly restless. Erik held out his arm, and it obediently came to him – but its eyes were cast toward the sky. It longed for escape without knowing what it would escape from. The fear of animals could be more terrible than that of people, because they hardly knew what it was they feared. Quickly Erik took a small leather hood from the pouch at his belt and slipped it over the hawk’s head. Though it jerked back from the first touch, it then calmed. 

“Why did you do that?” Raven said.

“Quiets him. Makes him not afraid.” 

“You don’t have jesses on him, though. I never saw a bird so well-trained as that before.”

The very idea of jesses sickened Erik. So had the hood, at first, but Moira had finally made him see sense. Sometimes what was loathsome to a human was welcome and comforting to a hawk. _Like eating live mice_ , Moira had said; it was the first time she’d made him smile.

Distraction was vulnerability, and Raven must have known it, because she said, “Charles is afraid for you.”

Erik didn’t turn to her. His gaze remained on the hawk, on its talons heavy and sharp upon his arm; he had leather gloves but usually didn’t bother wearing them. The occasional cut or scar was worth having. “You two talked more last night than you let on.”

“He didn’t say all that much, but he spoke about you. He said the bishop – the bishop could do worse than kill you. And his eyes when he said that …”

_Charles._ Sometimes the pain welled up fresh, like the droplets of blood from the new scrape on Erik’s arm, just beneath the hawk’s claw.  He closed his eyes.

Raven’s footsteps rustled on the leaves of the forest floor as she came nearer to him. “Stop here. You’re free, and what more can anyone want than freedom? Whatever the bishop did to you, you got away, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” 

Erik opened his eyes again. His expression must have been fearsome, because Raven immediately stepped backward. “No, you silly child. That’s not all that matters, and I am not free.”

The hawk shifted on his arm again, still restless despite its blindness. Still afraid. 

“I will never be free again.” 


	7. The Bishop -- Part One

In Avignon, the winters would not be so cold. Instead of this keep, he would dwell in a palace. Instead of a bishop’s robes, he would wear the red of a cardinal.

And yet Sebastian was not content, because in Avignon he would be one among many, and another would be his master.

Well. They said Pope Urban was not a healthy man. Perhaps another pontiff would be chosen soon. A new cardinal from the north would hardly be the most likely candidate … but there were ways to change men’s minds, and his own fate.

He leaned back in his chair as he watched the young women dance in the courtyard of the keep; he’d heard of their beauty and skill and ordered them brought to him. The entire troupe performed now, the grace of their bodies at odds with the stiff fear upon their faces. They had no idea whether they had been summoned for a grand performance or to show evidence of their sinful revelries. Sebastian did not intend to tell them, either. Terror was as delicious to him as wine.

Over the strings of the lute, however, he heard footsteps – and the clinking of spurs against the paving stones. Sebastian turned his head to see Janos, a young guard far too junior to be addressing the bishop directly … unless something very dramatic had occurred. For Janos’ sake, Sebastian hoped that it had.

“Your Grace,” Janos said, bowing deeply. “There has been a battle, and Peter of Halborough and three other men have been killed.”

“A battle? Did two armies meet upon the field of war?”

“No, your Grace. I meant – a fight. There has been a fight.” How amusing to watch Janos attempt to revise his statement to avoid the bishop’s wrath. Yet his next words banished all amusement. “We were attempting to retrieve the prisoner who escaped when we were set upon by Erik of Lancashire.”

Slowly, Sebastian rose from his chair. “Erik of Lancashire? Are you quite certain?”

“Yes, your Grace. He appears to be heading this way.”

“Does he travel alone?”

“It seemed that he took the escaped prisoner under his charge – but she is a mere girl, a pretty one at that, so no doubt he will have had her and thrown her aside by now.”

“Enough about the girl!” Annoying enough that this mysterious “Raven” had breached the walls of his impregnable fortress: Sebastian intended to have her drawn and quartered at his earliest convenience. But she was now the least of his concerns. “Was anyone else with Erik of Lancashire? Anyone or _anything_?”

“He – he had a horse, your Grace. And a hawk, or perhaps a falcon.”

Sebastian breathed in sharply. He told himself he was satisfied – that he would now have a chance to revisit his most perfect vengeance – and yet the fact that hawk and rider remained side by side stung like salt in a wound.

“Listen to me, Janos. Search the countryside. Send every man you can spare. No one sleeps, no one rests, until Erik of Lancashire lies dead. And I want his head as proof.”

“Yes, sir.”

Erik’s head on a pike beside his bed: That would be the perfect setting for a night of love too long delayed. “And the hawk – bring it to me. No matter what, you bring the hawk to me.” Sebastian’s voice lowered to a growl. “It is _mine_.” 


	8. The Cleric -- Part One

That sunset was worse than most, for no reason Charles could name. For nearly an hour afterward, he huddled near the fire Erik had built for him, blanket drawn around his naked body. On the soft earth by his feet he saw the pawprint of an enormous wolf next to an abandoned hawking hood. 

_If only we’d had our voices_ , he thought. _I would have liked to say something to him, at least one more time._  

But even melancholy was no match for hunger. No more time to sit and grieve – he had to eat. Greedily he went through the saddlebags. There were no further surprises waiting for him, but nearly as much bread as there had been when Charles finished dining the night before. Erik could hardly have eaten a bite.

“Good hunting, friend,” Charles whispered.

He unpacked his robe and cloak, and dressed for warmth. Now there was only the question of how to while away the long hours until dawn. At home, at least, Moira tried to stay up late enough to talk with him; after she slept, he had a handful of books and could read by candlelight. Here, though – there was only staying warm.

“We might ride, mightn’t we, Blackbird?” The horse flicked its ears at Charles. “But you’ve already had your day. You need your rest.”

Besides, Charles might have accepted that he couldn’t stop Erik from going after Bishop Sebastian, but he wouldn’t help him along, either. He wouldn’t bring Erik one step closer to a fate worse than –

He sat up straighter, and the horse’s ears swiveled again, as they both heard … singing?

“Summer is arriving, loudly sing cuckoo – seeds are growing, meadows blowing, and woods renewing – sing, cuckoo – ”

The girl’s voice was slight but pleasing, and the old melody was one he’d heard sung by peasants working his family estate when he was still a boy. Nostalgia welled within Charles – as did curiosity. Because the song seemed to be coming from overhead. 

“Ewes bleat after lambs, cows low for calves –“

She was – _in the tree_. Good God, it was Raven from the night before, and Erik had tied her in a tree. There was no understanding the man. 

Raven sat resignedly on a branch, wrists bound around the trunk behind her, face turned up to the moon as she sang. “Bullocks are shying, bucks are leaping, merrily sing – ” She glanced down, and beamed. “Charles!”

“I would ask what happened, but it’s obvious.” Charles sighed as he braced himself against the trunk. “Are you uncomfortable?”

“My hands are tied behind me and I’m strung up a tree like a corpse off the gallows. How comfortable do you think that is?” Raven kicked at her branch, but when it shook, her eyes widened with fear. Very quickly she added, “What I meant to say was, I’d be more comfortable down there with you, if you wouldn’t mind helping me, kind sir. And if Erik’s not around.”

“He isn’t. Never fear.”  

_Erik will be furious,_ Charles thought. But he climbed the tree anyway. Within a few minutes Raven was clambering down to the ground beside him; she strolled over to the small fire Erik had built and warmed her hands in front of it.

“That must have been chilly, up there,” Charles said. “Erik oughtn’t to have done that. I’m sorry.”

Raven shrugged. She glanced over her shoulder, her long hair painted rich gold by the firelight. “He’s rough, that one.”

“Not always. But he’s in desperate straits.” _More desperate than I realized._

“How did you wind up friends with the likes of him? And how did you find us yet again?”

Charles didn’t answer either question. Their mystery was one he and Erik had almost never shared. The one exception was Moira, whom he’d told right away, not knowing whether she would have them both burned as demon-spawn or simply run away from the family estate come daylight. Her friendship and courage had justified his choice. 

Of course, the bishop knew what he had done – and Henry. But he would have to think about Henry some other time. 

He said only, “Do you need anything to eat, Raven?” Little of the food remained, and he’d hoped to eat it just before sunrise, but if Erik had forgotten himself enough to not even feed the girl before confining her …

But she shook her head no. As he came closer, also seeking the fire’s warmth, her eyes narrowed. “That – what you’re wearing under your cloak – is that a _monk’s robe_?”

The clerical robe – never an easy fit at the best of times – was now absurd, two years after he’d left the order.  But if he were stopped by guards, seen by passers-by, the robe could buy him a bit of safety. “It is. Or, I should say, it was.” 

“You took vows?”

“No. I left before that.”

“How come they let you leave?”

“The rest of my family died two years ago. I was again the inheritor of my family’s estate.”

“Sorry about that,” she said, too cheerfully for the subject, but sincerely all the same, he thought. He rather liked Raven. She curled her knees close to her chest, a posture that reminded Charles how very young she still was. “You must have been sad to lose your mum and dad. I don’t even remember mine, but still I get mournful thinking about them at times – the way I hope they were, I mean.”

Charles smiled at her gently. “I know what you mean. But my father died when I was very small, and my mother – I lost her long before she died.”  

Raven looked into his face and must have seen some glimmer of the sadness behind his smile, because she fell silent, allowing him time with his memories.

_It is the duty of the second son to enter the church_ , his mother had said. Her hand on his shoulder had been pale and trembling, and though it was her voice that spoke – haltingly, from fear – Charles had known the words belonged to his stepfather. Until her remarriage, there had been no other son in the family; only his stepfather’s bullying and bribery could have put his boy in place to inherit, instead of Charles, the rightful heir. Even knowing of his the man’s cruelty, Charles had found it hard to forgive his mother for giving in, every time, and ultimately sending him to the monastery when he was only a small child.

Yet, before the bishop came, the monastery had been a good place to live. He’d heard tales of lecherous old priors who fiddled with little boys, but none such were present there. His cell was musty and cold, but he was given a thick wool blanket and enough to eat. When he made mistakes he might be cuffed, but nobody beat him cruelly, the way his stepfather had. While many of the brothers were strict, others were kind, and even some of the strict ones were wise, with much to teach. They soon determined that Charles had a fine mind and assigned him lessons that made his menial duties seem easy – but he loved the instruction all the same. Learning new things felt like the opening windows in a room he hadn’t even known was dark. Charles had been literate before he turned nine years old, had been allowed to start illuminating manuscripts when he was still more boy than man. It had seemed to him that life could offer no greater satisfaction than access to a library with nearly 300 books. 

Then he became more man than boy. Then he awakened to the mysteries of desire. Only then did Charles understand what his stepfather had taken from his life.

There might have been ways to manage.  He was far from the only younger son enrolled in monastic life against his will, and he would not have been the first to break vows that had been enforced upon him. The old bishop was doddering and senile, which meant that many of the brothers who did not feel a true vocation were free to seek pleasure, or even love.  Charles did not join in only out of inexperience, but the day was coming –

\--or it would have come. Instead the bishop had died. Sebastian had been appointed to his place. The first time his eyes lighted upon Charles was the first time Charles understood how repellent unwanted desire could be.

And with Sebastian came Erik, the captain of his personal guard.

Charles sighed. So many regrets, and he still didn’t know whether he repented of the things he’d done … or the things he hadn’t.

“You’re so pale,” Raven whispered. “As though you had never seen the sun.” 

“Long years in the cloisters, I suppose.” This was a lie, but what would the girl do with the truth?

She shifted on the ground, uncomfortable in her seat and staring. “Are you – you don’t seem – beg your pardon, sir, but are you a spirit?”

“What?” 

“A spirit. A revenant. A ghost.” Raven’s voice trembled more with every word she spoke. “With you so white, and never seen by day – ”

“ _Raven_. I am no spirit.”

“But you’re not of this earth, are you?” 

Every rejoinder he might have made, all the laughter he had stifled at her expense, died in an instant. Charles finally had to reply, “Not any longer.” 

Raven instantly rose to her feet. “Forgive me. You’re a kind man – or whatever you are, you’re a kind one – so kind I think maybe you’re an angel. But if you’re not an angel, I can have no dealings with you, and if you are, you know I’m not worthy.”

_Don’t go_ , he wanted to say. To face again the long cold nights alone, without Moira or a book or even his own bed for comfort, to spend those endless hours with no companion save his fear for what would become of Erik – it filled Charles with an almost unspeakable dread.

But Erik thought he needed Raven to help him break into the bishop’s keep. If Raven left, then maybe Erik would fail, and the bishop wouldn’t be able to hurt him again.

 Charles broke the remaining cheese in half, tore off a hank of bread and wrapped it in a scrap of cloth. “Here,” he said. “Go with God, Raven.”

“How can I help that when the Lord is everywhere?” Her mischievous grin flickered on her face for only an instant before gentling. “That means he’s with you too, Charles. No matter what you are.”

He watched her run into the darkness through the hot blur of tears.

 


	9. The Falconer -- Part Three

Shortly after sunrise, when Erik was back to himself, he saw the note scratched in the dirt, letters more finely made than he had ever been able to manage: _You went too far with Raven. I let her go._

Once Erik was finished swearing up at the sky, he dressed and saddled Blackbird in a rush. The girl couldn’t have run far – certainly no farther than he could ride.

Had Charles been right, perhaps? Erik had hardly hogtied the girl … but any position held for too long had its pains, and the night had been cold; he remembered that much. Also he recalled words he had written long ago about his fear of having been remade in Sebastian’s image _.  If I have become cruel –_

\--no.  Time to ask such questions later, if his life held a “later.” Raven would bear no scars from a few more nights’ hard travel. Besides, she’d eyed his possessions with enough avarice for an entire band of thieves; if he did not survive, then she could wind up with the lot. It was a good enough bargain that he accepted it for her. Once he had mounted Blackbird, he immediately spurred him to a run.

She was a city thief – Erik could tell. Raven counted on hiding in crowds, in plain sight … and not on covering her own tracks. Instead of heading back to the stream they’d crossed late on the afternoon before, where she could easily have walked a while in the water and thrown him off completely, she had run straight ahead, bending grasses and twigs as she went. It would be more difficult to track an entire herd of cattle than this reckless girl. 

_Your charity is misplaced, Charles_ , he thought as the hawk settled on his shoulder. _Raven misuses freedom the way a drunkard misuses mead. What that girl needs is a keeper._

He did not hear Charles’ voice – that had been denied him for a very long time. And yet that voice was within his mind, as clear as the sky above: _Is that what the bishop thought when he locked her up?_  

Erik reined in his horse. As Blackbird slowed and stopped, the hawk fluttered on Erik’s shoulder, which only made it harder to regain his self-control.

It was one thing to hate; surely his hatred had been earned. But it was another to turn into another version of the bishop, bitter and angry and striking out at anyone who got in his way.  Erik was willing to do whatever it took to satisfy his hate and expunge the evil of Bishop Sebastian from the world … to do anything short of becoming another version of the man he loathed.

This he would have done long ago, but for Charles.

_How do you do it? How do you counsel me, guide me, even in your absence? How do I know your words after two years of silence? How is your voice still the one speaking for my heart?_

When Erik’s breaths were again steady and his eyes again clear, he reconsidered the question of Raven. Yes, she was a cheating little wench, but a clever, good-humored one at that. She’d done something no other human had ever done in beating the bishop at his own game; surely he could respect that if nothing else. And he had made his plans to go after Sebastian without any idea that he might have a guide to get him within the keep. If he let Raven go, then he was no worse off than he’d been without her.

Slowly his hands relaxed around the reins. It required an act of will to look away from the path Raven had so clearly left in the field and turn instead toward the horizon.

And then he heard Raven scream.

The hawk fluttered up from his arm, alarmed. Erik spurred Blackbird forward, racing toward the distant cry. His cloak rippled behind him, the wind in his eyes, as he rode up the rolling slope of the hill. As they cleared the ridge, he saw the scene below – half a dozen of the bishop’s guards chasing Raven through the spring barley.

Erik remembered the one guard he’d let escape two days before. At the time he’d told himself it didn’t matter, believing it was his life alone he risked. Now his fatalism was likely to get Raven killed.

His hand found his sword hilt. Two years it had been since he’d fought on horseback, but he had not forgotten.

The guards looked up from their pursuit too late, only once he was almost upon them. Blood and screams and the vibration through his arm that only came when his metal struck bone: He’d almost missed it.

One of the bishop’s men, faster than his fellows, grabbed at Erik’s knee to tow him off his horse, a fate Erik only escaped by choosing to jump free. But that let him slash lower, and more deadly. Blackbird circled the fray as Erik continued fighting. The hawk swooped toward Raven, who was trying her best to make her way to Blackbird. 

Then the last guard lifted his crossbow, and Erik damned himself for not having a shield – 

\--but the crossbow tilted higher, up into the sky, and the guard fired at the hawk. 

And hit.

The bird plummeted from the sky as Erik screamed. Even as his cry rang out, he plunged his sword through the last guard’s throat. Blood gushed forth, and the dying man gurgled, and Erik didn’t give a damn. He let go of his sword, allowed it to tumble with the fresh corpse to the ground, to run to the place where he’d seen the hawk fall. 

_God, no. Not this. Not two years of suffering only to end like this._

Erik fell to his knees in the barley next to the bird, which lay on its back, fluttering feebly. The arrow jutted from its breast, buried deep; the point had to be large enough to penetrate almost the hawk’s entire body. With shaking hands he scooped it into his hands; he could feel its trembling, the uneven pace of its heartbeat.

“Erik!” Raven panted as she stumbled through the barley toward him. “How did you find me?”

“I knew to follow chaos and discord, and there you would be!” He shook his cloak from his shoulders and wrapped it tenderly around the wounded hawk. “Come here, girl.”

“Why are you – oh. Your poor hunter.” Her voice was gentle, even as her words outraged him. “That’s going to finish him off for sure.”

“It will not.” There was only one thing to do, only one choice to make, no matter how much Erik hated it. “You will take Blackbird, and you will ride fast as he can bear to the village of Faxton. Due east, almost exactly. To Faxton, do you understand me?”

Raven nodded, though she looked confused. “But – why aren’t you – Erik! You’re hurt!”

The knife wound across his arm was nothing. A scratch. Bloody, and burning, and meaningless compared to the cries of pain from the hawk.

“You will take this bird with you. You will hold it close and take care with it, every step of the way. When you reach Faxton, you will ask for an alchemist who probably goes by the name Henricus, though he is only Henry.” 

“Henricus.” Her face paled. “You mean he’s one of those sorcerers?”

“An alchemist! You will give him this hawk, and you will tell him my name, and you will tell him that he must save this bird or surrender his immortal soul. Tell him it is Erik of Lancashire who commands him! Do you hear me?” 

She nodded. “Yes, I hear you. I will.”

Erik thought she meant it, but who could tell with this girl? “Then hear this too. You care for this bird’s life as if it were your own. Because if I find you abandoned your mission, if you thought to steal my horse and skip away lightly, I swear to God I will find you again and this time there will be no saving you. Do you understand?”

Raven looked as though she might protest, but she only held out her hands.

“Get on the horse first, you foolish child.” As she mounted Blackbird, Erik rose to his feet, hawk in his hands; the world reeled around him, and he wondered how much blood he’d lost. It didn’t matter. He would walk to Faxton, no matter how long it took him; he would look Henry in the face again and find out whether this last desperate measure had succeeded.

He nestled the wounded hawk in the crook of Raven’s arm. The arrow jutted forth from the swaddling of Erik’s cloak, and once again the bird screeched – but so feebly.

Erik slapped Blackbird’s rump, and the horse took off at full gallop. Raven either knew how to ride or how to hang on. He stood in the field amid dead men, looking down at his hands covered in his blood, and the hawk’s. 


	10. The Thief -- Part Three

The guards’ attack had upset me greatly, as you will see when I say that I was near halfway to Faxton before I realized I need not carry out Erik’s errand. For all his threats, I now had his money, his supplies and his horse, and were I to make all those my own, I should be richer and freer than I had ever thought to be.

Even so, I kept riding toward Faxton.

Erik had saved my life twice over. Hard and rough he might be, but he had good in him, too, or he would not have done that. And despite that hardness, that roughness, I had seen love in his eyes when he held up his arm for the hawk – seen his rare smile when it alighted upon his glove with a flutter of wings. If I could do nothing else for him, I could try to save the bird.

I even felt pain for the hawk itself. Time was, had I seen a bird with an arrow in its breast, I would have thought only of the good supper ahead. But this hawk was special to Erik, and strangely it was special to me, too. There was an uncanny sort of intelligence in its eyes, a loyalty to Erik that surpassed anything I had seen from an animal before. As I rode, I glanced down at the crook of my arm, where it feebly attempted to stir. Over the pounding of Blackbird’s hooves, I could hear it making sounds that were less those of a hunting raptor and more like those of a chick unable to fly.

The sun was low in the sky by the time I reached Faxton. When I spied a milkmaid walking along with her pails, I called out to her to ask after the alchemist.

“That lunatic!” she said. “But if it’s crazy talk you want, Henricus is the one for the job. He’s fashioned a house in the tall tower of the abandoned church. It’s a devil’s workshop, if you ask me!”

None of which was encouraging, but by now the hawk was in dire straits and I knew I could waste no time on fear. 

“Open up!” I pounded on the door with my free arm, still mounted on Blackbird, as I could not think how to get off the horse while still holding the wounded bird. “Open this door!” 

“Go away!” called a voice from inside. It was not the voice I had imagined for a sorcerer.

I only thumped my fist on the door a few more times. “Open up! I come from Erik of Lancashire, and he demands a favor of you!”

After one moment, the voice spoke again so quietly I almost couldn’t hear. “Erik of Lancashire?”

“One and the same! Do I have to beat this door down and drag you out?”

He opened the door. Instead of the elderly, wizened, sinister figure I had imagined, there stood a young man – perhaps only a few years older than me – with as fine a face as I had ever seen. In astonishment, I said, “ _You’re_ Henricus?”

“Yes, and who are you?” he said, in such a way that I knew he found my face as pleasing as I did his. But then he saw the hawk in my arms, and he went pale as death. “Good God. This bird is – it’s Erik’s?”

I nodded. “It’s wounded. He said maybe you could save it, and that you had to try.”

“Give it here!” He held up his hands, and carefully I settled the hawk into them. Henricus looked nearly as stricken as Erik had. How could this bird mean so much to both men? As Henricus began running up narrow stone steps, I dismounted and made to follow, but he called out, “Stay where you are! Don’t come upstairs unless I call you!”

Which I thought not entirely friendly, but then he had other matters on his mind. 

Instead I went back outside and properly tended to Blackbird, rubbing him down best as I could and making sure he had water. Nightfall had come, and I watched the sun dip below the horizon as the sky darkened, and only then went inside again.

Candles burned – a dozen at least, which suggested this Henricus managed to make some money for himself with his sorcerer’s tricks. Only the rich have so much light. On the broad wooden table were the implements of alchemy, or so I supposed: A scale, bowls with various mysterious powders, and a mortar and pestle. In a hopeful moment I wondered if he had indeed learned to make gold from lead, and if in such a case he would terribly mind my helping myself to some gold, since after all he could make more for himself whenever he liked. But neither gold nor lead were in evidence.

How curious it was to see an old church turned into a house! But it was a very old church indeed, half crumbling, and indeed I could see slivers of starlight through the rafters overhead. The village of Faxton must have built itself a better church long ago and left this for remaking by someone with ingenuity. Though I considered myself clever, my imagination did not run to such as this, and I admired it in real wonder. This would have been the church proper, and here amid the tall pillars, beneath the twisted faces of gargoyles, Henricus did his work. The bell tower must have been where he slept, I surmised, and where he had now taken the wounded hawk.

But why had he been so stricken at the sight of the bird? I could not fathom it. Erik, yes – by now I understood his deep love for the thing, odd though it might be. What I couldn’t understand was why Henricus should share this love, especially as Erik had seemed very angry when he spoke Henricus’s name, and thought Henricus owed him something …

Footsteps pounded on the stairs, and the young alchemist appeared. He was in an even greater panic than he had been before. “Vinegar!” Out of breath already, he dashed to a nearby jar, opened it and sniffed. Vinegar it was, because I could smell it from where I stood. “And myrrh – we’ll need myrrh – here!” Then his face fell. “Mint. I’m out of mint. Damn!”

“Is that for the poultice?” I didn’t know much about doctoring, but I knew wounds needed a poultice. Probably it was as true for birds as it was for people.

“Yes.” Henricus went for his cloak. Still he was speaking to himself more than to me. “Some mint grows by the edge of the clearing. I can get there in time.” He took up a lantern, then seemed to really notice me for the first time since he’d opened his door. “You’re not to go upstairs.”

“Upstairs. Not me. I understand.”

His eyes narrowed. “You swear it?”

“On my mother’s life!” 

That seemed to satisfy him, and out Henricus went. Of course, he didn’t know my mother had been dead these many years.

Foolish man, to tell me I shouldn’t go upstairs. Wearying a day as I’d had, I’m not certain I’d have been in any hurry to do so if he hadn’t told me not to.  I am a contrary sort, always wanting to do what shouldn’t be done. Besides – was it not only a wounded bird upstairs? What could be so secret about that?

Then I began thinking that perhaps Henricus was healing the bird with alchemist tricks, wild and strange magicks that they keep written down in their secret books. Maybe he kept all the alchemical wonders upstairs – like, for instance, some of that gold he’d conjured out of lead?

So I hurried up the bell tower. The old stone steps were uneven and crumbling, but I am sure of foot, particularly if I think there might be gold to be had. 

And – strange though it was for me to realize it – I was worried about the hawk, and wished to see that it still lived. A hunter like that is no man’s _pet_ , but it belonged to Erik if it belonged to anybody, and I had never so much as touched the creature before tonight. So I should not have cared. But I knew it was loved. I was little enough loved myself to think anyone or anything so lucky as to have love should be able to live and enjoy it. Even a bird. Even that. 

I reached the top of the steps, and a door. Cracks of light illuminated its edges. As I pushed it open, I saw that this was where Henricus slept – that much I had expected – but there I saw – no bird, and yet there on the pallet, wrapped in blankets – lay Charles.

With an arrow jutting from his shoulder.

And I knew it was the same arrow, and so I also knew something that I would once have believed impossible: Charles and the hawk were one and the same.

I realized another impossible thing as well. The pale wolf I had seen, the one who bowed his head to Charles’ touch – the wolf was Erik. 

Charles’ head lolled to one side so that he might look at me – or because he lacked the strength to hold it straight any longer. Never before had I seen him illuminated by more than moonlight, so it was only now that I realized how blue his eyes were. He did not look surprised or angry at my intrusion; he was past any of that. Blood still oozed from the wound, pooling in the cloths Henricus had wrapped around the arrow’s shaft.

“Raven,” he said, as though he had to remind himself of my name. Pain fogged his vision, creased his face.  

I wanted to come close then, to comfort him, but I was afraid, too. “Tell me, for once and for all, are you flesh or are you spirit?” 

Charles closed his eyes. “I am sorrow.”

 

Then I heard bustling on the stairs behind me. As I could not hide, I simply stepped aside and made way for Henricus. When he saw me, he huffed in frustration. “Your mother’s dead, isn’t she?” But Charles stirred again, and then all attention was for the patient.

Fascinated, I watched as Henricus readied the poultice, then went to sit by Charles’ side. “You know what we must do,” Henricus said, and his voice shook.

“Yes,” Charles whispered. “I know.” 

“If I tear you too badly, and the bleeding springs fresh – ”

“Then I die. Erik will be free. And so will I.” Charles held up one hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Henricus took it. “You must know that I forgive you.”

“I don’t deserve it.” Henricus was near crying, now. So was I, though I had no idea what this was all about; their suffering filled that room as surely as the scent of blood.

“I no longer even believe – there was anything to forgive.” Charles’ breath was coming fast. “Quickly. Do it quickly for my sake.”

Henricus seized the arrow, and in one swift motion, pulled it free.

Charles screamed. Blood seemed to be everywhere, all over both of them, and almost before I knew it I was running downstairs. I made it outside before I vomited, but only just, and I could not rise from all fours in the dust until my stomach was empty, my throat burning and my head reeling. 

When I went back inside, I didn’t go upstairs. It seemed sure to me that Charles was dead, and I could not face the sight of him dead. Instead I helped myself to a bit of Henricus’ cider, which was hard enough to make my head swim but at least put something back in my abused belly.

Finally Henricus appeared. He must have seen my unasked question on my face. “He’s asleep. I crushed poppy seeds into his wine, so he’ll rest for a few hours now – that will get him past the worst of the pain.”

“You mean Charles will live?” 

“He has a chance, at least.” He sat down heavily on the steps, and I saw how weary he was. Exhausted, really. Men in such a state will often speak of things about which they would otherwise remain silent. 

“Henricus – ” 

“Henry. My name is Henry. The Latin form is just to – add a bit of gilt.” He seemed embarrassed. “I’d rather you called me by my real name. You would be the first person who has in a very long time.”

Here, I thought, was someone near as lonely as Charles and Erik. Talking would do more than satisfy my curiosity; I thought it would give his soul some comfort for a time. “Can you tell me the truth behind this magic? What unearthly power is at work here?”

“You know the heart of it already, I see. Now I think you must know all.”

 


	11. How It Ended

Raven and Henry sat on the steps of the old church tower. Any casual observer would have been struck by the youth of these two people – one already a criminal, the other already an alchemist. But any who looked closer and saw the shadows in their eyes would have known that these two were in some ways old before their time … denied the childhoods they should have known, the reckless abandon of youth and young love. Each recognized that loneliness in the other, as clearly as a call and its echo.

If they still dared dream of happier things – if there was something in the way they unconsciously leaned toward one another, or how Henry could not quite meet Raven’s eyes, or how she kept playing with the ends of her golden hair – neither realized it. Even greater mysteries were at work.

“I went to the monastery as a small child,” Henry said. “My parents wished it, but I was pleased to go. To serve the Lord, and to be educated as well – to me it seemed the best of all possible lives.”

“A nunnery never had any appeal for me, I have to admit.” Raven’s small joke made Henry smile; the sight of it gladdened her in turn. 

“Charles was not yet a full member of the order, but he already helped teach some of the little ones, and he took me under his wing. It was he who taught me to read and write, he who found the volumes of alchemy in the library that we studied together. More than that – he understood that I was still very young, and missing my mother and father. He became almost a third parent to me. My confidante, and my best friend.”

“If you liked the monastery so well, why did you leave it?”

“Because I no longer deserved that life, or to pretend I had the favor of God, after what became of Charles and Erik.”

A chill swept through Raven, and her mind filled with tales she’d heard of dark sorcery. Of witchcraft. Even now she was surrounded by an alchemist’s tools. She was not a superstitious girl, but she had seen a man transformed into a hawk and could no longer discern any difference between the impossible and the probable. “Then it was – it  could not have beenyou who did this to them.” 

“Not I.” Henry felt as though his chest were caving in, slowly, like a hollow of sand too long left behind by the tide. “This was the bishop’s work.”

“The bishop! Should have known he was in league with Satan. Only black magic could allow a man so wicked to wear the robes of God without bursting into flames as he deserves!” The immediate ferocity of Raven’s anger caught Henry off guard, but only briefly. He could not wonder that anyone hated a man so vile. “Charles said something – something about how he didn’t want to be at the monastery any longer after the bishop came. That’s part of this, isn’t it?”

Henry nodded. He was unsure how to explain the rest; his experience of worldly things was very limited, and what little chance he’d had to talk of such things was limited to other men. To speak of sex to a girl – to this girl, so beautiful and so brash that she seemed to steal the light from the candles – and yet he had to find a way. Charles’ presence upstairs demanded the truth and no less. “The bishop – from the first moment he saw Brother Charles, the bishop desired – he wished – hmm.” 

“What?”

“He wished to lie with Charles as a man does with a woman.” Henry’s cheeks were blazing. “This is not so uncommon, it seems.”

To his astonishment, Raven merely shrugged. “I know what men get up to when they’re cooped in with each other.” Though the practice was often spoken of with contempt, so too was sex between men and women, even husbands and wives; any pleasure of the body was suspect. However, Raven had learned that many of these pleasures were well worth the having and assumed the coupling of two men was also.  “Charles didn’t care for Bishop Sebastian, though, did he? Nobody could care for someone so cruel.” Besides, she had always thought the bishop to have a countenance much like that of a rat. 

“No. Charles avoided the bishop’s company as best he could. Of course, given the bishop’s authority over our monastery, and the increasing hold he had over the entire countryside, there was no way to avoid him entirely. But Charles did his best, and I helped, as did some of the other brothers. Then, two years ago, the rest of Charles’ family died of the plague. Charles inherited his family’s estate, and as he had not taken vows, not even Bishop Sebastian could deny him the right to return home and oversee his own lands.”

“So why didn’t Charles go?”

“He would have. The day for his departure was already set. But the night before he was to go, the bishop searched for Charles. To profess his love, or what he thinks of as love, I suppose. When he did not find Charles in the monatery, he must have begun to suspect the truth." 

Raven thought of what Charles had said when he spoke of the bishop’s love being even more poisonous than his hate. She’d known even then that he spoke from hard-won knowledge, but the truth was more horrible than she’d imagined. “Charles refused him?”

“Worse,” Henry said. “The bishop found him with Erik.”

“And they were – ohhh.” So much made sense, now. The way the hawk needed no jesses to be tethered to Erik. The bowing of the wolf’s head beneath Charles’ touch. 

The candlelight’s flickering painted Henry’s face in various shadows, changing and contradictory. “Erik had been the captain of the bishop’s guard. Although the bishop’s law was harsh, Erik always enforced it fairly. He cared more for justice than for advancement or riches. Everyone had already learned to take problems to Erik first. So long as he held that position, life under the bishop was … endurable, at least.”

“Why would Erik serve a man so evil?” If Raven knew anything of Erik, it was that he did not suffer fools gladly – nor tyrants either.

“I believe Bishop Sebastian took him in after his parents died years before, during the pestilence.” Henry shook his head wearily. “Later, I hear, Erik finally learned that the bishop had shut himself away from all the sick rather than minister to them. His parents were among those who died as much from lack of nursing as from the sickness itself. I cannot imagine Erik did not hate the bishop for it. But he is one who does not give his word lightly. Having sworn fealty to Bishop Sebastian, he would keep it.”

“Yet he defied the bishop to love Charles.” Already Raven had half forgotten her designs on each of these men at various moments over the past few days; she was prepared to think them as romantic a pair as Lancelot and Guinevere.

For his part, Henry could only look back at his youthful ignorance in chagrin. “Would you believe I thought they disliked one another? Forever arguing. Charles always pled for mercy for those who had fallen afoul of the bishop, and Erik always stood on the side of law and order. But they argued about other things, too. On the merits of the king’s claim to France, about the nature of angels, even which tavern served the finest mead. Countless times I heard them at it, and yet I never asked myself why two people who disagreed so often would make a point of finding one another to disagree every single day.”

She laughed to think of it. “That monastery sheltered you better from the sins of the world than I would have thought possible!” Yet her laughter stilled as she saw the darkening cast of Henry’s face.

“Had I understood that, I would have understood why Bishop Sebastian came to me seeking Erik that final night. And I would not – I would _never_ have led the bishop to the inn where I knew Erik sometimes took a room. The bishop suspected what I had not. Charles and Erik were saying their farewells when we found them. In his rage Bishop Sebastian levied a terrible curse.”

The curse itself had been the most frightening sight Henry had ever witnessed. There was no describing the foulness of the devil’s work made manifest in the world. The very air had seemed to blacken, and it seemed to him that even now, two years later, he could smell the sulfur, taste the soot.

“The rest I know. He turned Charles into a hawk, but only during the day,” Raven said. “And he turned Erik into a wolf, but only at night. Oh! That was – so they wouldn’t ever be together. Never even see one another.”

“Except at dawn and dusk. The bishop’s cruelty is as sharp as it is strong; the point is always directed at the heart. He allows them to glimpse one another for one moment at dawn, another at dusk, but no more than that. They are always together, but ever parted. Never again will Erik know the comfort of nighttime, or Charles the joys of day. Nor can they ever share the love the bishop wanted for himself.”  

Raven swallowed hard. Already she knew ways in which this was not true; already she had grasped the nature of the cheese hidden in a saddlebag, or the notes left scratched in the dirt. Charles and Erik found ways to reach out to one another despite the curse. And yet – never to touch? Never to talk, nor to laugh? To kiss? Their arms and beds were forever empty. 

Her thoughts of their suffering allowed her to see Henry’s own misery even more profoundly. He shook like a sick man even thinking upon this, and his role in it. In truth, Raven herself felt her temper flare at Henry’s shortsightedness – but had she not made her own mistakes? 

She rested her hand on his shoulder. It was the first time Henry had ever been touched by a woman not his mother or sister, though he said nothing; he could only stare at her face.

“You didn’t mean to,” she said. “That’s why Charles said there was nothing to forgive. You never intended to betray them to the bishop. It was Bishop Sebastian who took advantage of you.”

“I – I ought to have thought – ”

“You were a boy raised in the church, following the orders of a churchman to be taken to his loyal servant. Of course you thought nothing of it!” Raven’s fingers combed through Henry’s hair, a caress he had never dreamed could be so comforting. “Some of us find out the world’s not such a nice place when we’re younger than you, but – but often we learn it by not being so nice ourselves. I might have sold someone out for a few coins, once upon a time.” That time was only a day or two past, but it seemed another lifetime to her already. “Not you, Henry. Never you.”

“You think more of me than I deserve.” 

Raven simply shook her head. She thought he looked wise. He thought she looked gentle. And in the glow of each other’s presence, they became both wiser and more gentle than they might have been alone. In moments like this, two people begin to realize that they do not wish to part.

But Raven was not one to readily admit such. She turned her mind from this new kindling to the bond that had brought them together – the one between Erik and Charles. “To think they had been lovers all the while, right under the bishop’s nose.”

“They weren’t. That’s part of the hell of it, you see? Charles told me afterward – on that last wretched day before they left the town forever – he and Erik had never lain together. They had never kissed before that night, not once. I led the bishop to them only moments after Charles went to Erik, only moments after they first took each other in their arms.”

“You mean – ”

“Their love is forever unfulfilled. They had only just confessed it. Only just admitted they were more than strangers.” 


	12. The Room of Words -- Seven Months After

On the wax tablet, come morning: _Moira’s been crying. She tried to hide it, but I see. What have you done?_  

Come nightfall: _Always you blame me. For that Scotswoman’s tempers, for any broken thing. I awake every day to my list of crimes._

Morning: _You destroy more as a man than as a wolf. You have scared off the few servants who didn’t realize we were cursed. You make this worse than it has to be, and it has to be torture. Your cruelty makes this worse than torture._

Nightfall:  _You keep your pretty Moira in a nearby bedroom and call me cruel. You have no words for me except lectures. No money that I might see to this house, or purchase a horse, or do anything but sit in this cell. No use for me. No use at all._

Morning: _Moira is not my concubine, nor yours either, so if you are troubling her in that way to make her cry, stop. Why would I give you money? To replace the things you damage? To hire more servants for you to bully? Trust must be earned._

Nightfall: _What lover did I ever pursue but you? What did love ever win me but pain? I traded my whole life for a few kisses I might have had from any barmaid, and she at least would have given me a smile. From you nothing but this hell. Why did God send you to make me suffer?_

Morning: _Do you think I suffer any less? Do you think I have not regretted every moment we spent together? If you would take it all back, so then would I. We should never have met._

At nightfall, on the windowsill, lay the broken remnants of the wax tablet. The wooden frame might have been repaired, but the wax itself had shattered into countless flakes. A few of them lay upon the floor, but more had fallen out the window. Hours and hours of searching in the moist earth by candlelight could not turn them up again.

And so the room fell silent for days, then weeks, winter without end. 


	13. The Cleric -- Part Two

Charles slept for a time, but drifted in the sweet fog of opium far longer. So he did not awaken so much as he sensed the fog clearing and knew himself once more. 

Pain returned with sense, and he winced – but unlike Henry, Charles felt no fear that he would perish. He had learned over the years of the curse that the transformation from hawk to man and back again was a sort of twice-daily rebirth; his physical form was made over new in every sense. Once Erik had fought with other wolves and come home torn and bloody, and Charles had wept to see him. However, Moira had told him that Erik was totally well come morning. Charles would have healed from the arrow wound at nightfall had the arrow not still been lodged in his flesh. Essentially, the transformation had been like being shot a second time.

He glanced tiredly at the thick bandages wadded around his burning, aching shoulder. At dawn they would fall away as he spread his wings. 

But Erik? Where was Erik? Charles had realized last night that Erik was not with them. Raven had brought him here alone. And if arrows had been fired at him, then they had been fired at Erik too. 

His heart pounded, and the wound stung, and his wine-weakened head throbbed. Charles tried to breathe more slowly and calm himself. _Erik lives. Raven would not have known to bring you to Henry. So Erik must have told her._

Yet the thought of Erik in danger while he was unable to give any real comfort, much less any real help –

_Why does it grow no easier to bear? Why does it only become harder with every passing day?_  

Charles thought he knew the answer, but he was not strong enough to endure that and his wound, too. Instead he turned his attention to more pressing needs. Weakly he rose from the pallet, relieved himself in a chamber pot, pulled on the robe left for him, and shuffled to a small tray nearby, which held a pitcher and a little bread. The pitcher contained weak beer, which Charles gulped down gratefully, and despite his lingering nausea he devoured the bread, too.

He almost didn’t remember what it was like not to feel hungry. Erik had the better portion of this; what a wolf ate could sustain a man, or very nearly. However, even the best hunting hawk in the world could not devour enough to satisfy a man’s appetite. Moira cooked for him well enough at home, but traveling had been difficult.

Though Erik had always left as much food as he could for him, every single day. 

Morning was near. Although the sky beyond the window remained dark, Charles could feel dawn approaching now as surely as any other person could feel their own weariness or hunger. The coming and going of the day was now one of the primal forces of his body, impossible to ignore.

He listened for the howl of a wolf, but he listened in vain. Erik would not be with him this morning. Their few moments of togetherness – that instant when their eyes met and they knew one another as men – that would be denied them today. It happened regularly enough that one of them would oversleep or simply be elsewhere, though Charles was grateful that the hawk’s instinct always led him back to the ground before his change. 

Yet every time he missed his chance to see Erik, Charles regretted it. Four times now, one of them had even managed to say the other’s name. Thrice Charles had found his voice first, but this last time, Erik was the one who had spoken to him. To hear Erik say his name just once more …

Footsteps on the stairs made Charles turn his head just as Raven poked her head through the door. “You’re awake!” Her grin instantly turned into a scowl. “What are you doing up? Lie down, you fool!”

“I can manage. Really.”

Raven simply put her fists on her hips. “Lie down before I knock you down.”

Charles had to laugh, though it turned into a cough that made his ribs ache. “Very well, milady.”

As he settled himself back on the pallet, he had to admit it felt good to rest his body further. Still, when she tried to get him to drink more of the wine, he shook his head. “It’s drugged, isn’t it?” 

“You need to rest!”

“I don’t know whether it will affect me – later.” He hesitated before saying the next, but he trusted his logic. “You know now, don’t you?”

“The bishop’s curse.” Raven nodded. “I saw the proof for myself, but then Henry explained.”

“How is Henry?”

“Sleeping, finally. He watched over you most of the night.” Henry hadn’t been the only one, Charles realized; Raven’s eyes were red, and her movements clumsy from tiredness. Yet she smoothed his blankets and fussed over him like a little mother. It was pleasant, having such feminine attention; Moira was a true and good friend, but her idea of caretaking was more likely to be a smack on the rump and a stern reminder not to mope. 

“And Erik? How is Erik?”

She hesitated – only for an instant, long enough for coldness to seize Charles’ heart. “He’s coming after us, he said. But he was injured in the fight." 

“Dear God.” 

“It wasn’t so very bad. At least, I think not. Still, there was blood, and he bade me take Blackbird, so he can’t have gotten far before nightfall. Would – the wolf know to come here?”

“Not as you or I would know. Probably he would follow by scent. He won’t be far.” The transformation from man to wolf would have healed Erik’s wound. Still, knowing that Erik had been hurt – that he might have been killed while Charles was unaware – it was hard to face. “Was it the bishop’s guards?”

“They must have been looking for me. Because I escaped, and then I bragged about it like a fool.” Raven hung her head.

Charles held his hand open for her, and she took it. “I’m sure you were a very impressive thief, but we’re the ones the bishop wants. By now he knows we’re coming back to reckon with him before he goes to Avignon.” 

“And he’s scared of you. Scared of what you’ll to do him, though it’s no more than he deserves.”

“Hardly. Surely he only wants us dead, now, so rumor of us can’t spread any wider than it already has. The pope is more a worldly prince than a holy one, but surely even he would condemn sorcery. Sebastian would never allow us to interfere with his ambition.” Charles smiled without mirth. “When Erik began this journey, I fought him – but now I realize that at least this way we spared Moira and the other servants. Otherwise the bishop might well have sent soldiers to kill us, and them too.”   

Raven’s eyes widened. Beyond her, the sky at the window was slightly less dark, and through the lingering dullness of the wine, Charles felt a tingling upon his skin. The change was not yet on him, but his body was readying itself. “Charles, you can’t just – give up. You have to have a plan! You don’t stand a chance against Bishop Sebastian otherwise.”

“Did you have a plan when you broke free of the bishop’s keep?”

She scowled. “If you’re taking me for your example, you’re in worse trouble than I thought.”

Once again he laughed. His smile changed, though, as he heard the distant, plaintive howl of a wolf: Erik was near. They might not be together this dawn, but at dusk – maybe he would be given his glimpse at nightfall – 

-and then he heard Henry shout, “They’ve come!”

After that, the sound of thudding against the door. Fists, and weapons. The bishop’s guard. 

Raven pulled Charles to his feet, but he realized there was nowhere for them to go. This was a tower of some sort, connected to no other structures, and the guards had overrun poor Henry below. When she headed up the stairs, Charles went with her, but only because the alternative was to sit and wait.

She climbed the ancient, narrow steps almost too fast for Charles to follow. His shoulder burned, and already his body felt strange, not his own. Yet he was still himself, and the guards weren’t far behind. Somehow he had to fight. 

A lifetime spent illuminating manuscripts was no preparation for combat at close quarters. Once, long ago, Erik had let Charles hold his sword – Charles had been surprised at how heavy it was, and Erik had laughed, and their eyes had met for a moment too long –

_The opium’s still got you,_ he told himself. _Think!_

Henry had hung various tools and implements all along the walls – a kettle here, a stirrer there – no doubt this entire tower was one enormous laboratory. Charles began grabbing things from their hooks and throwing them down the stairs. They’d do little enough damage on their own, but if someone were to trip and fall –

Loud thudding, louder cursing, and a crash: Good.

Raven took the hint and began throwing things too, climbing all the while, but Charles felt sure she realized they were only buying time. They were cornered. Soon he would be in the clutches of the bishop’s guard – of the bishop himself.

No. He wouldn’t. No matter what.

“This is it,” Raven gasped, and she shoved her shoulder against what he realized was the door that led to the top. The tower’s darkness suddenly broke; even the pale gray of pre-dawn was bright compared to that. Blinking, Charles emerged onto what had once been a bell tower. Now it was merely a stone floor, not very big, wholly unprotected from the winds and elements around them. The small village of Faxton slumbered on beneath them, unaware of the fight in its midst. Raven seemed almost stunned, and he realized she would never have been so high before in her life – never seen what the world looked like from above. 

He retained so little of his time as a hawk, but he kept that. It was one of the very few beauties he owed Bishop Sebastian.

Now that he’d made up his mind, Charles wasn’t afraid. The entire event seemed dreamlike. He smiled at Raven, hoping against all odds to reassure her. “Step to the very edge.”

“I’ll fall – we’re up high as the sky – ”

“You won’t fall. Just get away from the door.” Charles positioned himself near. His skin itched wildly, and it seemed to him that his body was – too large, too heavy to be borne. Not long now.

It would all come down to a matter of moments, and his survival or death was entirely beyond his control. The guards would appear when they would appear; he would do what he had to do. That was all. 

But either way, he would save Raven, and that was enough.

“If I don’t see Erik again,” he said, “tell him I do not do this to abandon him.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Tell him that I am always with him. Whether I am hawk or man, whether I live or die, my soul follows his forever. He will never be alone.”

Raven’s hair blew about in the wild winds, though she clung to the very edge as she had been told. “Get back from there – they’re coming!” 

The door thudded open and two guards emerged, swords at the ready. Charles flung himself at them – 

\--blades slicing through each of his sides, but no matter, no matter –

\--and they all three fell to the edge, past it, down.

“Charles!” Raven shrieked from above.

The guards fell with him, but Charles was free of them. Free of their blades. He opened his arms, welcoming change or death, whatever came – 

\--the wind beneath him, around him, against his skin, but it was no longer skin, it was no longer Charles.

As the guards thudded to the ground, screams, breath and life ended in an instant, the hawk circled upward into the sky. Charles’ robe fluttered down beside the dead bodies, as if an afterthought.

 


	14. The Falconer -- Part Four

Erik always felt the cold first.

No matter whether summer or winter, he perceived it as cold – the sudden restoration of his own skin in the place of a wolf’s furs. First he knew the chill, then realized he was a man again, himself again, naked and helpless. Instead of the usual campsite, he was on all fours in a field, half crawling toward a goal he no longer remembered. Where had the wolf been trying to go?

Memory snapped into place. Confusion was replaced by terror.

_Charles._

Then Erik heard the screaming. 

Erik turned his head sharply toward the sound. Outlined in the dawn was a church – no, the ruins of a church, and atop the old bell tower was a girl shouting her fool head off. That could only be Raven. On the ground outside that church, the bishop’s guards were grappling with someone – an unarmed man – 

Thank God he saw Blackbird. Erik whistled sharply, and the horse galloped to him. Within seconds of Blackbird’s arrival, Erik had thrown on his cloak, reclaimed his sword and swung back into the saddle. As they raced toward the melee, hoofbeats pounding against the ground, a dark shape in the sky caught Erik’s eye – the hawk circling overhead.

_He’s alive! Charles is still alive!_

Even as Erik’s heart sang, he realized how foolish he had been to imagine he saw Charles being attacked; he could not exist as a man while Charles did, not for more than an instant. The one he saw falling to his knees in the road now – that was Henry.

Angry though Erik was with Henry, he would not see him slaughtered, if only to deny the bishop the satisfaction. 

Blackbird raced onward, and the guards turned their heads to see his approach far too late. Instead of rallying, they scattered. Erik made quick work of them – a stab here, a slash there – and then reined Blackbird to a stop.

Henry still knelt in the road. He and Erik regarded one another for a long moment. “Will you run me through?” Henry said. “I don’t dispute your right. I only want a moment to commend my soul to God, and to tell you something before you kill me.”

“You have no idea how often I have dreamed of killing you. Sometimes nothing else would comfort me.” Though it was the bishop’s fault, not the boy’s, and Erik knew this – but it was hard, so hard, to look him in the face without rage. “Few comforts remain to me. I need the ones I have. So go.”

At first Henry didn’t seem to believe him. “… go?”

“The dream of killing you provides more pleasure than the reality could. You’re not much of a challenge.” Erik looked down at the four dead guards lying in the road. Who had slain the other two? “Besides, when word of this gets out, better you should be far away.”

“Erik!” Raven came bursting from the church, a large kettle in her hands. “You saved Henry.” 

“He did,” Henry said. For some reason he got the hug, instead of Erik.

“Thanks be to God,” Raven said, “because I had no weapon save this, and how I would have fought them off with a kettle, I don’t know.”

“You have more courage than sense, girl.” Erik looked at the sky and held up his arm; the hawk settled upon it almost instantly. “But you did your work, and I thank you.” 

“I only came here. It was Henry who had ways to soothe Charles’ pain and keep him alive to morning.” Raven beamed admiringly at Henry; Erik was glad to see him too shamed to much notice. “Look at the hawk now! He’s strong as anything. The wound is gone.”

“It is always so.” Obviously the girl had learned everything about the curse, and as he ought to have expected, lacked the sense to get away from them both as fast as possible. But she was not his main concern. Erik tried to live some of the charity Charles would have shown were he here. “You heard me, Henry. Ply your alchemist’s trade elsewhere; there are fools ready to listen to your charlatanry wherever you might go. As for you, Raven … I should never have brought you into this. It is dangerous business, and you cannot afford to fall into the bishop’s hands again. You should leave us too. Be free. And be safe.”

To Erik’s surprise, Raven shook her head. “You said something about taking revenge on the bishop. I intend to have a piece of that revenge myself, sir. It’s no good trying to stop me; you must have learned that by now.”

He had to smile. “You are an impossible and contradictory creature.” 

“That makes two of us. No, three, because we must count Charles. And Henry too, that’s four. What about you, Blackbird?” She stroked the horse’s nose. 

“We don’t count Henry,” Erik said. “Did you not hear me, boy? You’ll be arrested for this if you’re here when the others rise – or, more likely, finally dare to look outside and see the source of the clamor.”

Henry’s hands closed into fists as he raised his face to Erik’s at last. “You must listen to me,” he said, his voice strengthening with each word. “As much as you hate me, as much as you blame me, you have to hear this, Erik. And you have to believe.”

“What is it you think I must hear from you?”

“Ever since the bishop revealed his true nature that night, I have made it my mission to learn more about the darker arts of sorcery, so that I might know how to defeat them. I now believe – Erik, I believe I know a way to lift the curse on you and Charles.”

Raven gasped. For his part, Erik felt nothing. He was shocked into total numbness. It had never occurred to him that anyone but the bishop would have the power to remove the curse, and possibly not even he. “No one can unmake the devil’s handiwork.”

“There is a way!” Henry insisted. He stepped closer to Blackbird, eyes darting nervously toward the sword at Erik’s side, but his words never faltered. “I found an ancient text that spoke of a curse such as this. To lift it, you and Charles must confront one who cast the curse – must face Bishop Sebastian together, as men. If his eyes see you standing together once more, the power of his curse will be broken.”

Erik resisted the urge to kick him. “How are we to do that? We have one instant at dawn, another at dusk. Hardly enough to even glimpse each other, much less the bishop. How can we force Sebastian to look upon us then? At the moment of transformation, we are both overcome.”

Henry nodded. “Dawn and dusk won’t work, for precisely the reasons you name, but in three days’ time, you will have a chance. The text spoke of ‘a day without night, and a night without day’ – ”

“You mean it was gibberish,” Erik said. Shock settled into contempt once more. “Nonsense.” 

“No. Don’t you see? A day without night and a night without day can only mean one thing.” Henry’s smile was bright, as though triumphant. “An eclipse.”

“Is that when darkness swallows up the sun?” Raven shivered, as well she might. Many people believed eclipses were harbingers of evil. Erik did not consider himself superstitious, but even he did not like the thought of it.

He said only, “None can know when such a thing will occur.” 

“That’s just it! I think we can. Charles and I used to chart the stars, and we had astronomical records from the monastery going back more than a century. We had begun to believe eclipses happen at a sort of schedule – not a schedule, really, but they follow a pattern. Raven, ask Charles about this tonight, and tell Erik what he says tomorrow.” 

“You try to tell me Charles would plead your case,” Erik said. “That’s how low you will stoop, to make me believe in your false hope.” 

Henry fell silent. After a few moments, Raven said – more timidly than was her wont – “Erik, last night, Charles forgave Henry. I heard him.” 

“You should know by now that Charles is the better man.”  The wind blew more sharply then, and Erik shivered, covered as he was only with a cloak. He wanted to ride far from here, to dress and return to himself. He wanted no more of this alchemist’s lies and nonsense. Upon his arm, the hawk shifted from foot to foot, already restless to fly. “If you’re coming with me, Raven, get up here. The sooner we leave Henry to pack, the more likely he will survive the day.” 

“This is your only chance,” Henry insisted. His eyes met Erik’s, and the force behind his gaze revealed that Henry had grown into a man. “If you will not believe in our astronomy, then will you at least believe in the mercy of God? Because I have prayed, every day and every night since I betrayed you both, that I would have a way to right the terrible wrong I caused. Will you not believe in his forgiveness? That he has shown me an answer, so I might share it with you?”

“God has not forgiven you,” Erik said as Raven silently climbed on the horse behind him. “He has only driven you mad.”

Then he rode away, Raven clinging to him. He could tell that she looked back at Henry as they went, but Erik never did. 


	15. The Room of Words -- Nine Months After

Scratched in soot from the poker beside the fireplace one morning: _Oft I must strive with wind and wave_

_Battle them both when under the sea_

_I feel about the bottom, a foreign land._

_In lying still I am strong in strife_

_If I fail in that they are stronger than I_

_And wrenching me loose, soon put me to rout_

_They wish to capture what I must keep._

_I can master them both if my grip holds out_

_If the rocks bring succor and lend support_

_Strength in the struggle. Ask me my name!_

The next morning, also in soot, beside it: _You won’t even guess?_

That night, scratched more thinly: _I thought you had taken up poetry. Is it a riddle? I don’t know it._

In the morning: _That is why you’re meant to guess. It’s an anchor. See?_

At nighttime: _I suppose that is clever._

In the morning, words by now almost all the way to the floor: _Here is another._

_My house is not quiet, I am not loud_

_But for us God fashioned our fate together_

_I am the swifter, at times the stronger,_

_My house more enduring, longer to last_

_At times I rest, but my dwelling still runs_

_Within it I lodge as long as I live_

_Should we two be severed, my death is sure._

At nighttime, now up at the ceiling: _It’s a fish, isn’t it? And the house is the river. Here, I know one they won’t have told at the monastery._

_A strange thing hangs by a man’s thigh, hidden by a garment._

_It has a hole in its head._

_It is stiff and strong – and its firm bearing reaps a reward._

_When the man hitches his clothing high above his knee,_

_He wants the head of that hanging thing to find the hole_

_It has often filled before._

In the morning: _Erik, life in the monastery was sheltered, but even I know what that is._  

At nighttime: _It is a key._  

In the morning: _Oh! That’s a funny one. Moira laughed and laughed._

_So did I._

At nighttime: _Why riddles? Why anything, after so long a silence?_

In the morning: _I wanted to talk with you again, but I wasn’t sure you would. I thought – a riddle – you might guess, at least._

At nighttime: _I have wanted to talk with you also. I’m sorry I broke the wax tablet. My temper is choleric, and the winter was hard. For you too, I am certain._  

In the morning: _Very hard, yes. The nights went on and on._

 _Moira says you two are making friends. I realize her moods before had nothing to do with you. I should not have accused you, but I was jealous._  

At nighttime: _I was jealous of you and Moira, too. But now you know about her Irishman, I see._

 _Forgive my anger, if you will._  

In the morning: _It is forgiven, if you will in turn forgive my cruelty. It was wrong of me to keep you from the money, or a horse. I was so scared you would go and leave me to bear this burden alone, if leaving were easy. But that is your choice, not mine. Beneath the bed today you will find a bag of gold. Use it as you will, with my blessing. What I have is yours, entirely, as it should always have been._

 _What Irishman?_  

At nighttime, in scarlet ink, and finer letters on the first stone of the next wall: _I went into town. Go out to the stables and meet our new horse. I have named him Blackbird, after another I have seen take wing during the day. You could ride at night, perhaps, if the moon were full. We’ll train him together._

_My other purchase is this ink. We would run out of room too soon with the other, or have to wash away our words. I like keeping them there, if you do._

_I thank you for your generosity, but I shall stay. Though I have cursed this place for a prison, I know that it is a shelter, too – the only one the likes of us could ever have. You shared your safety with me rather than cast me out alone. You did not abandon me, and I will not abandon you. This burden is one we bear together._

_So Moira hasn’t told you about Sean yet? Ask her tonight what she thinks of men with red hair, and see what she does._

With that the room began to earn its name. Every day, more words appeared. The scarlet ink ran out and was replaced with blue. Then green. What had been a stone chamber both men likened to a prison became pages in a book they both wrote and read together. A sad story, but a shared one. 


	16. The Thief -- Part Four

We stopped only a short distance out of town, so that Erik might clothe himself. I sat on the ground on the other side of Blackbird – but Blackbird is a very tall horse, with rather long legs, and he did not much obscure my vision.

_Lord_ , I silently prayed, _if I do not look upon this man’s nakedness with sin in my heart, then it is as innocent as looking upon a newborn babe. I wish only to appreciate another form of beauty you have created in the world. Is that not worthy and virtuous?_

So I glanced sideways at precisely the right moment. 

Then I prayed, _Lord, if you did not want sin to come into my heart, then you should not have fashioned such a man as that. I must say, well done, my Lord. But why did you not cast more from that mold while you were at the task?_

Soon Erik was dressed again, and my mind was freed from the shackles of impure thoughts to wander again. It wandered back to Henry right away. The memory of his face made me smile – but more important by far was what he had said. “Erik?”

“You can ride half the day today,” he said, distracted as he tugged on his boot. “More than that, and Blackbird will tire too soon. You decide which half.”

“That’s not what I was going to ask.” He wouldn’t like this, I knew, but it had to be said. “Why will you not consider what Henry said about breaking the curse?”

“Because he is a child who pays more attention to books and stories than real life,” Erik snapped. “Because in his guilt he has invented a tale to make himself feel better. No man has ever predicted an eclipse, so far as I know. Why would Henry be the first?”

“Why would he not?”

Erik’s smile was more cutting than any blade. “You liked Henry, didn’t you? A girl your age should be interested in a boy of like years, but I tell you now – rascal though you are, you can find a better man than that.”

I wished I could box his ears. “Henry may be a boy, but you are the one acting like a child. If you do not trust his judgment, then trust Charles! He studied with Henry. Taught Henry everything he knew. These predictions are something they worked on together. If Charles told you there would be an eclipse in three days, you would at least look to the sky, would you not?”

That gave him pause, but only for a moment. “It is not Charles who tells me so. And under no circumstances are you to tell Charles about any of this.”

“But why not?” 

The hawk had perched in a nearby tree, the better to devour some small wriggling thing it had caught. Erik stared at it as he said, “You are too young to know what most destroys a man’s soul. It is not pain, nor captivity, nor deceit. It is hope.”

“Hope? We must have hope, else why go on?” Without hope, I would never have freed myself from the bishop’s keep.

“False hope, I should have said. To hope in vain, to know that your hopes have come to nothing – that destroys a man from the inside out. If you give Charles false hope that we might be free of this curse, and then we remain enslaved by it – you will destroy what scraps of joy he still possesses. He needs that joy. He has so little else. And I mean to protect it for him.” Erik’s hand went to the hilt of his sword. It was a gesture without thought – he did not intend to threaten me, I felt sure. But that was how strongly he wanted to keep Charles safe from any harm. 

“Very well,” I said. “I won’t tell Charles.”

“Good.” 

“You might investigate it yourself, though. Three days – that’s still before the bishop will leave for Avignon. You would still have a chance to kill him, if Henry’s prediction proved wrong.”

“I intend to take the first chance I have to kill Bishop Sebastian, whenever it falls. I know him well enough to know I shall never get another.” Erik set about double-checking Blackbird’s tack, the state of our supplies, and I wondered if he would speak no more of it. Finally he said, “Henry must have learned to fight; I’ll give him that much. I’d never have thought he’d stand a chance against those guards, but he took two of them down before they got the better of him. At first I thought it impossible, but no other could have done it – especially as you had only a kettle.”

Though I wished I could give Henry that small scrap of Erik’s regard, I felt I must tell the truth. It was an unfamiliar sensation for me, so I had no defenses against it. “It wasn’t Henry who defeated those two guards. Or me. It was Charles.”

Erik straightened and stared at me. “Charles? He _fought_?”

“Not exactly.”  So I told Erik how it was, the very moment of dawn, and Charles leaping from the tower. “Even three seconds later, and I’d have been killed for sure. It was as brave as thing as I’ve ever seen, even if Charles did know he would change into a hawk and fly away.”

By this time, Erik had braced himself against Blackbird as though he thought he might fall. “He could not have known the exact instant. We don’t know. We sense it, but – it’s beyond our control, beyond our precise knowing.”

“You mean, Charles jumped even though it might have killed him?” Erik nodded. I whistled and looked up at the hawk, which was by now done with its breakfast. “Of course, Charles knew that. I should have remembered. Just before they came, he said – ”

“What? What did Charles say?” Erik’s eyes blazed. “Before he nearly committed suicide. Tell me that. Was he done with this burden at last? Could he not hold on even to see the bishop dead?”

 I hugged myself against the chill of the morning and his angry gray gaze. “He said to tell you – ” Oh, how did he put it again? I can never remember things straight. “To tell you he didn’t abandon you. That his soul would be with yours always, forever, even after death.”

Erik turned from me sharply, but not fast enough to hide what he felt. I simply turned my attention to Blackbird, combing my fingers through his mane and telling him he was a pretty horse, very pretty indeed, for as long as it took Erik to gather himself once more.

At length I said, “What would you have me tell Charles?”

“If I cannot say it to him myself, there is no point in it being said.” Then Erik went to a nearby stone to sharpen his sword.  


	17. The Bishop -- Part Two

The guard fell dead at the bishop’s feet, the limp ends of the garrote falling upon the stone. Janos looked satisfied, more fool him.

“You say this man failed to tell his soldiers not to shoot at the hawk,” Bishop Sebastian said.

“Yes, your Grace.”

“Is that, perhaps, because you failed to tell him yourself?”

There was always something exquisite in that moment when a man realized he might be about to die. Sebastian sometimes thought he could smell it, sweet as attar of roses in the air. Janos paled, and his voice was thin as he said, “I told him, your Grace. But he – he did not attend to my words.” 

“If any other does not ‘attend,’ Janos, I shall let you choose the method of his execution – and then I shall let him choose the method of yours. I wonder which of you will outdo the other in creativity?” 

“No other will make that mistake, your Grace. I swear it.”

“I should imagine you do.”

Sebastian watched Janos bow and scrape his way out of the chamber, the better to whip his worthless troops into shape. In truth, the bishop had to admit that Erik had managed men far better.

But Erik was a traitor, and he was learning what traitors deserved.

Did Charles still live? Sebastian’s temper flared anew at the thought that his prey might have escaped him, even through death. When he had cast his curse, he had thought it the most complete revenge he could ever wish – but now he wanted more. So very much more.

“Your Grace? You summoned me?”

The bishop turned to see his visitor – a man with a fearsome visage, cloaked in red. His robes, gloves and boots were all trimmed with wolf’s fur. “You are the hunter Azazel, are you not?” 

“I am.” 

“No quarry escapes you?”

“Not for long. I have not hunted men before, but as your Grace wishes – ” The glint in Azazel’s eyes suggested he had longed for an excuse to murder. This was a man Sebastian could use.

“Not a man, Azazel. At least not on this hunt. I want you to find a wolf. A very particular wolf – you will know it by the company it keeps.” 

Azazel might have protested at that, but he only nodded. Good.

“If you can bring it to me alive, do so.” Where Erik went, Charles would follow. “But if you must kill it, that is also acceptable to me. But bring me proof that the carcass belongs to that very same wolf – I shall tell you what proofs would satisfy. When you do that, you will be richly rewarded.”

One way or another, his men would capture Charles soon. Sebastian hoped to capture them together, but if he had killed Erik first, that would provide its own delights. Already he could imagine forcing Charles to kneel for him … on the newly tanned hide of a pale wolf. 


	18. The Cleric -- Part Three

Charles awoke in a stable. He blinked at the rafters, sat up and brushed away the straw, then thought, _It must have worked._

Sure enough, Blackbird was nearby, munching on oats. Erik’s cloak hung on a peg. Outside he could hear a general clamor – music, even, and people laughing. They must have reached one of the larger towns. That meant they could be no more than a day or two from the bishop’s keep.

He shuddered.

 _I have taken life. They were the bishop’s men, but so too was Erik, once. What I did was done to save Raven, but that does not mean I did not sin._ Charles crossed himself and resolved to pray on his penance, that he might know what punishment the Lord found fitting. 

Then again, perhaps the torments he and Erik endured were their own form of purgatory on earth. Maybe his sins were already paid for in advance.  

Raven came into the stable then, her face shining and her hands carrying a tankard of something that foamed. “Look who’s back. Did the wolf steal out already?” 

“He must have. Was everything all right today?”

“Everyone’s alive,” she said blithely, taking a sip that left her with a foamy mustache. “Well, I mean, you are, and I am, and Erik and Henry too – though we left Henry behind.”

Her good humor seemed to dim, so Charles wiped her mouth clean with his thumb, which made her laugh. “All’s well, then.”

“I guess.” Raven seemed troubled, but before Charles could ask her if anything else had happened, she quickly said, “Are you hungry? There’s meals to be had at the inn. Music tonight, too!”

His stomach growled, but he hesitated. “We mustn’t be seen.” 

“The bishop’s guards are nowhere around, and they won’t come bursting in tonight. We gave them a walloping today, didn’t we? And besides – how long has it been since you had some ale and did some dancing?" 

“… never.”

“Never?”

“I’ve had ale before. Of course. But I’ve never danced.” 

“That settles it.” Raven took his hand. “Let’s go in. We won’t linger long if you don’t think it’s wise. But you have to eat, and if that seems safe, then you might want to try dancing just once.”

Charles followed her out of the stable toward the inn, more bashful by the moment. It wasn’t the thought of dancing that unnerved him – it was the sound of laughter. Conversation. People.

For two years, he’d spent nearly all of his time alone, save for the few hours of darkness Moira could stay awake to amuse him, and then these past few nights with Raven, and finally Henry. The only time Charles had been in the company of more than two people was that very dawn, when the guards had stormed the tower. To suddenly be in the middle of a crowd of strangers! The mere thought was intimidating.

However, once they were inside, amid the din, it no longer seemed strange to him. Charles remembered this – the way people smiled at one another, lifted their cups in a greeting. The taste of lamb stew, so rich and savory that he dabbed up every drop with his piece of bread. And the way strong ale burned your throat and made it feel as though you were glowing inside. Raven bought them one tankard, then another, between clapping her hands in time to the music.

When she could apparently bear it no longer, she grabbed Charles’ hands. “Come on! Get up!”

Dancing, she meant. “I don’t know how.”

“There’s nothing to know! Let your feet do what they will, and you’ll be dancing.” 

“We shouldn’t be conspicuous.”

“We’re more conspicuous sitting like lumps while everyone else has fun.” That was true enough, Charles realized, but he still felt unsure. Raven gave him a look. “You know, Erik told me to see that you enjoyed yourself for once.”

“He did?”

“Yes. He said – he said that once in a while, every man needed a drink and a song and to make merry all night.” 

Charles burst out laughing. “Erik never said such a thing in his life!” 

Raven showed no shame at being caught in a lie. “Well, I say it, so listen to me, then. Get up and dance!” 

He got up. And he danced. 

She’d been right – it was simple, really, just moving to the music, hopping from foot to foot as the others did. Raven was always there to catch his hands at the correct moment, to help them twist or turn, and though he often got it wrong, all she or anyone else did was laugh, and the laughter was kindly meant. The camaraderie of other human beings warmed him as surely as the fire, or the shared body heat, or –

\--or the feel of Raven in his arms. 

It had been two years since he’d received his first kiss, and his last. Two years since he’d felt Erik’s arms go around him, and his body had swooned to the sudden kindling of desire. Raven was beautiful, young and happy. No stranger to love, he would guess. Erik must have seen her beauty too. Had Erik bedded her? If he hadn’t yet, would he?

Charles’ imagination suddenly slipped into a dream that seemed like something the opium would have spun the night before: Raven as their messenger, their bridge, as the bearer of kisses and caresses, Erik making love to her by day, Charles by night, their touches passing through her skin to find each other.

He stopped dancing. Raven leaned closer. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve had too much ale.” Charles felt sure of that much.

“I suppose it’s a lot if you’re not used to it. Come on, let’s get you outside. The cold air will set you to rights.”

Yes. Cold bracing air. That seemed a good idea. 

Together they walked into the darkness toward the stable. Charles could not look directly at Raven. Though the fever of desire for her was already slipping away from him, the mere possibility – however remote – was far more excitement than he’d had since that first kiss with Erik.

How sweet it had been – Erik’s hands cupping his face, one fingertip brushing along the line of Charles’ eyelashes, the warmth of Erik’s breath against his lips – Charles had relived every moment of it in his mind a thousand times, and still it had the power to overwhelm him.

“You’re woolgathering,” Raven said as they turned the corner of the stable – and then she screamed. 

Charles would have screamed too, if he could breathe. There stood a horse with a red-cloaked rider; on the back of the horse was draped a dead wolf.

The rider smiled. “My name is Azazel. I urge you now: Come quietly. There is no point in your coming to pain at my hands. I’m happy to leave that to the bishop.”

Raven took off running. Charles didn’t move. From the corner of his eye he saw her glance back, no doubt astonished he hadn’t done the same, but why run? 

The wolf was dead. Erik was gone.  Murdered while Charles danced with another. 

“Kill me,” Charles said. “Please. Tell Bishop Sebastian you had to do it.” 

Azazel’s grin was an ugly thing. “I never lie to the bishop. If you’d been as honest, you wouldn’t be in this predicament, would you?”

No farewell. Not even a word scratched in the dust. Erik had died a beast, unable to pray for his salvation before – wait.

Charles’ eyes narrowed as he saw the wolf anew. Its fur was pale, but too pale. Almost white. And one ear was torn and jagged, but long enough ago for the cuts to have healed. Erik still lived. 

Gasping with relief, he managed to say, “Why – why did you kill this wolf?”

“Needed her scent,” Azazel said. “You see, I’m to bring you to the bishop, along with a very particular he-wolf.  And if there’s one thing that always draws a he-wolf to the trap, it’s the scent of a she-wolf in heat.”

 _To the trap._ The bishop wanted Erik caught in the crushing steel of a trap.  

The wolf shied from strangers, any strangers, any noise and heat and light. If Azazel had set traps, he had set them in the woods. 

Charles ran for the trees, moving so suddenly that he must have caught Azazel off-guard. At any rate he was well into the brush before he heard anyone behind him. Brambles caught at his legs and arms, but he paid them no heed. By the thin moonlight streaming down through the budding tree branches above, he tried to see metal within the leaves and twigs. 

A clank, a snap – Charles jerked away just in time, just before the vicious saw-teeth of one trap closed. Quickly he grabbed a fallen branch and began prodding the earth in front of him and all around. _One trap. That’s one. They’re heavy things – Azazel can’t have brought that many on horseback. If I spring them all, Erik will be safe._

“Get back here!” Azazel shouted. “The bishop said not to kill you, but he didn’t say anything about not hurting you.”

He kept working with the stick. Azazel’s fury told him he was in the heart of the traps, able to undo the hunter’s work.

 _Snap!_ Metal closed around the stick. Charles tried to shake the stick free, couldn’t, and let it drop so he could grab another. 

“I’ll have your fingers for this!” Azazel snarled. He was getting closer – his voice louder – though Charles didn’t turn to look. “One by one.” 

One more _– snap!_ The flush of triumph Charles felt was short-lived; Azazel was almost on him, only steps behind. What chance did he stand against a hunter? Very little.  

Not far away – not nearly far enough – a wolf howled.

Frightened, enraged, Charles turned toward Azazel and did the only thing he could think of – shoved him backward. Azazel, caught off guard, toppled down …

_Snap!_

Azazel’s scream splintered horribly, caught as it was in a throat lanced through with metal spars. Charles could only watch as Azazel thrashed, then shivered, then went still.

Somehow he found the strength to stagger away from the dead body toward the sound of the wolf. As he reached the edge of the clearing, Charles saw it standing there, pale fur like part of the moonlight. Quickly he knelt; as ever, the wolf came to him. 

He pulled its furry head against his chest. “Stay here,” Charles whispered, though every word shook. “Stay here with me.”

Though the wolf’s nose twitched, scenting the she-wolf, it did not budge. If Charles had to hold it all night long to keep it from any remaining traps, he would.

“That was quick work.” 

Charles looked up to see Raven dangling from the high branches of a tree. “How did you get up there so fast?” 

“I’ve got my ways,” she said. “So do you, seems like. What kind of monk were you?”

“Please,” Charles said. “Please. Don’t praise me for something so wicked.”

“Wicked?” Raven shimmied down again, lithe as a squirrel. “That man was trying to kill you and Erik both!”

“I am a murderer. Three men in two days. God forgive me.” He buried his face in the wolf’s fur. It smelled of soft earth and cool pines.

There was a soft thud as Raven dropped to the ground. As she came to his side, the wolf looked up at her but did not growl; by now it knew her too. “Charles, it’s not as if you wanted to kill them. You didn’t choose to be cursed, to be hunted.” 

“No. It’s only one more destiny chosen for me by the bishop. No matter what I do, no matter what we try, the bishop controls Erik and I both , for the rest of our days.” Charles stroked the wolf’s side, scratched its head. “If this is the price of staying alive, then perhaps – perhaps it is too high.” 

Raven went to her knees beside him. “Can monks keep secrets?” 

“I – we – of course.”

“I’m about to tell you something Erik absolutely told me not to tell you, so you can’t ever ever let him know that I told you.” She glanced at the wolf. “He won’t remember me telling you now, will he?”

“No, but – what are you talking about?”

“Charles, did you and Henry learn how to predict an eclipse of the sun?”

Of all things. “We did. At least, I think we did. We never had the chance to put our theories into practice. Why do you ask?" 

Raven took a deep breath, then began to speak again. With every word, Charles felt his heart fill with something he’d never expected to possess again: Hope. 


	19. The Room Of Words, As It Filled

Ink was expensive, and not always to be had at market, so they never wrote long letters, or really letters at all. They kept themselves to a few lines … enough for another riddle, or reports on the romance of Moira and Sean, or a reminder that they needed to lay in more peat.

Prosaic as these messages usually were, not one was ever erased. Even the lines in soot were left alone until they had begun to fade as the dust fell from the walls; then, one morning, Erik awakened to find that Charles had gone over every letter of those first riddles in ink so that they would not be lost.

That was how Charles gave presents. Unlike Erik, he could not go to market and come back with more ink, or beeswax candles, or any other little token that might be put by the bedside to be found at dusk. Instead he sought ways to help where he could, to make Erik’s life more pleasant or more beautiful. Erik’s clothes were laundered as often as a priest’s vestments; he discovered bunches of fragrant dried herbs tucked among his things.  One morning he even found that Charles had replaced the mattress during the night, disposing entirely of the old straw and filling it instead with soft moss it must have taken him weeks or months to gather.

Charles knew not to expect similar things from Erik, who was not given to poetical gestures, or such long-term planning. But the candles and ink and cheese were not mere supplies; they were intended as a kindness, left in places and in ways that showed Erik hoped Charles would be made happy by their presence.

Every day they wrote, even if there was little to say. As they covered more and more of the walls during the next year, they had to become more creative in how they used their space – and this became a sort of game, too. Charles was the first to put his message on the ceiling. Erik was the first to make a crude little drawing instead of writing in words, though the image was indeed so rudimentary that Charles could never tell whether it was intended to be a self-portrait in wolf form, a picture of Blackbird, or something else altogether. Soon nearly every surface was covered, but they doggedly kept to this one room.

They painted on the wooden planks of the floor. They painted on the posts of the bedstead. They wrote their words for each other sideways, upside down, on the door, on the windowsills. Each planned things he might say for days in advance. Each seized on any unusual happening, any funny moment, as the seed of a message the other would especially enjoy and remember.

Neither of them ever knew for certain – though each of them guessed – that the other sometimes spent hours on end in the Room of Words, reading and rereading every line.

What they wrote, they wrote to please each other. To comfort each other.

Not to increase each other’s pain. 

And so neither of them ever wrote the word _love_. 


	20. The Falconer -- Part Five

“You’re behaving oddly today,” Erik said. 

“You’ve known me not even a week. How are you to know what is odd or not odd for me?” Raven tossed her pretty hair, which perhaps she thought had the power to distract a man. In truth, probably it did, and once upon a time it might have distracted Erik well enough. Today it did not. 

“You have been polite and obedient. You have agreed with every suggestion I’ve made, and you have not gotten yourself into difficulty once.” He raised an eyebrow, trusting that his point was made.

She merely shrugged. “Maybe you’ve made better suggestions today than you usually do. Did you ever consider that?”

There was no managing the girl.

They had stopped for a midday rest. Blackbird drank thirstily from a nearby stream. Raven sat with her shoes in her lap and her bare feet dunked in the frigid water. She seemed as weary as if she’d skipped going to bed the night before, but Erik couldn’t make out why her feet were sore – after all, he’d let her ride most of today, as he had yesterday. As for Erik himself, his entire body felt heavy. The wolf must not have slept at all during the night. But he could not rest, not this close to Bishop Sebastian. His chances for revenge were already short, and they grew shorter with every passing hour.

The only one of them not exhausted was the hawk. Erik watched as it soared high above, higher than it usually flew, until he wondered if it could truly touch the clouds. It was as though the bird were borne aloft not only by the winds, but also by joy itself. 

Surely it was joyful to fly, Erik thought. How had he never thought to ask Charles that?  He saved it, folding it up in his heart for one more conversation they would have line by line, dusk by dawn. 

Raven stood again at last, frowning as she stepped back into her boots. “Ouch.” 

“What have you done to your feet? If you’re blistering, say so.” The last thing they needed was for her to go feverish with infection.

“They’re sore from all the dancing, I expect.”

“Dancing?” 

Her cheeks pinked. “There was music at the inn last night.”

“And who did you do all this dancing with?” Some handsome fellow from one of the nearby farms, no doubt. Maybe they had done more than dance; maybe that was why she was so tired.

Then the hawk swooped down from the sky, and Erik held out his arm for it – but instead it flew straight to Raven and settled upon her shoulder.

“He went to you,” Erik said quietly. “Well. Now I have my answer. You were dancing with Charles.”

Raven looked from Erik to the hawk and back again, obviously discomfited. “No. I mean, yes. We did dance. He’d never danced before, not once in his life, and I couldn’t let that go on, could I?” 

“I suppose not.” Erik busied himself with Blackbird’s tack. His mouth tasted sour. He could only think of all the other things Charles had never done before. 

Why should Charles not find a night’s comfort with Raven? Erik could never lie with him; should that mean Charles should die untouched? In their situation, he had no right to jealousy – and yet he could imagine wrapping his fingers around Raven’s pretty throat.

“He thinks only of you,” Raven said. She shrugged her shoulders, and the bird fluttered from them to Erik, alighting upon him just as easily. “Last night – there was a hunter there, a hunter of wolves. Traps had been laid in the forest. Charles went out and sprang them, one by one in the dark, even though he couldn’t see them and might have been hurt himself. He couldn’t let you be trapped and killed. When he speaks of you, the light in his eyes – ”

Erik gazed up at the bird. It cocked its head, studying him with a feral gaze that bore no resemblance to Charles’, none at all.

She continued, “Yes, we danced. We’re friends – just like you and I are friends, you see? Surely you wouldn’t begrudge Charles a friend.”

Was he Raven’s friend? He supposed he was. She worked her way under a man’s skin like a splinter.

When Erik turned back to Raven, he said, “And there’s nothing else you should tell me?” 

Raven hesitated – an instant that stretched to an eternity – but then she repeated, “Charles thinks only of you.” And Erik knew she was telling the truth. 

“Then I am glad he has another friend. He deserves that.” He smiled slightly. “You’ll do in a pinch.” 

That didn’t even earn him a scowl. “I wanted to ask you one thing.” 

“What would that be?” Erik reached up to affectionately ruffle the bird’s feathers. Too much would be disturbing for it, but a quick stroke on the back never went amiss.

“Have you given no thought to what Henry said, about trying to break the curse?”

“No, and if you know what’s good for you, you won’t either.” 

“But if you’d only _consider_ – ” 

“Raven. No more.” Erik steadied Blackbird, then swung into his mount. The hawk took wing again, still ready to fly. “If you’re riding with me, then ride. We cannot linger.”

“I know, I know. You have to reach the bishop soon.” 

“More than that.” He glanced once again at the horizon, suspicion sharpening to certainty. “We’re being followed.” 


	21. The Thief -- Part Five

Charles did not like my plan, but he had no better.

“Trapping Erik – tying him up – it seems cruel,” he said as we huddled together in the campsite, side by side for warmth. Tonight we could have no fire without giving ourselves away to our pursuer.

“He tied _me_ up,” I reminded him.

“Very well, you have the right. Me? He’ll have my tail feathers for this.”

That made me laugh, and Charles too, but we were more nervous than amused. Erik might bear us some loyalty even in his beast form, but when we attempted to restrain him, the wolf in him would win out for certain. 

Still, what else could we do? Erik was hell-bent upon his revenge, so much that he would not plan ahead in any detail, much less consider Henry’s idea about the eclipse as a time when the curse might be broken. I did not have the power to persuade him; Charles did not have the opportunity. But if we could restrain Erik, he could be made to listen. 

“I hate this,” Charles murmured. His breath fogged the air; spring was yet little on the land, especially here in the high hills. The nearby river was still iced over, though surely it would thaw in another few days. “I hate being a killer. I hate having to hunt and trap my dearest friend. I hate the thought of ever seeing Bishop Sebastian again. Yet there is no other way for any of it.”

I petted his arm. “You’ve never had to get a bit dirty before, that’s the problem. Not that I’m saying we shouldn’t strive to be free of sin, but we all fail, don’t we? Some of those failures are a bit more useful than others.”

“Your theological education has been severely neglected.”

“Well, you can improve my soul once we’ve broken the curse. We can break the curse soon as we haul Erik and you in front of the bishop during the eclipse. And we can haul Erik in front of the bishop only after we catch him, so let’s catch him and be done with it.”

Charles squared his shoulders. “Very well. You’re sure you’re ready?”

“No, but I’ll get no readier. Call him.”

He hesitated, and I knew this was the part that most troubled Charles. To call the wolf was to call what remained of Erik – the part of what we did that involved betraying the man and not the beast. Yet he called out – a wordless cry, not a name, a slow downward slope of a note. It must have been a signal he’d learned long before. 

We waited there in our cold little camp by the riverside, peering into the darkness, until finally we heard a rustling. The wolf appeared, pale fur bright in the darkness, its ears pricked up as eager as any hound’s. Charles held out one hand, low and friendly. “Come, come.” 

One step forward, then another, the wolf slow but trustful … and then it tensed.

I heard it too late – the crunching of footsteps behind us. The bishop’s guards! I sprang to my feet, ready to kick or punch or whatever I might muster. But when I turned, fist drawn back – “Henry!”

“Good God.” Charles pressed his hand to the front of his chest. “You scared us.”

“Are _you_ the one who’s been following?” I felt like my face might split from smiling. Not the guards, but Henry! He’d know about the eclipse, about everything, and now I could talk with him some more. I so liked talking to Henry. 

He nodded. “I couldn’t let it go so easily as that. I thought, if I caught up at night instead of during the day, we might get somewhere.”

“We might at that.” Charles smiled in welcome, and I knew that their friendship had truly mended. 

The wolf growled. We all whirled around to see it, fur on end, fangs showing as it began to snarl.

“Shhhh.” Although Charles held out his hand again, attempting to be comforting, the wolf had eyes only for the intruder. No way to know whether the Erik within remained angry with Henry, or whether the wolf was suspicious of a stranger. It was backing away now, farther from our grasp.

Quickly I tried to circle around it, to try and perhaps shoo it forward from the side. Instead the wolf snarled at me, too, sensing risk at every turn.

“Oh, it’s useless now.” Charles sighed. “Let him calm down; let him be.”

The wolf kept backing away, paws skittering against the ice of the river. But the ice began crackling loudly … no, I realized, cracking, breaking open.

With a yelp, the wolf fell through the ice into the water.

“No!” I tried to run to him, realizing only after a few steps that I am heavier than any wolf. Instead I dropped to all fours and stretched myself out. Charles was nearly behind me, ready to dash past, but I waved him back. “Hang on to me! Flat on the ice or we’ll all go through!” 

“We need rope!” Henry called. “My horse – my supplies – ” 

“Hurry! He’ll freeze sure if we don’t get him.” Even faster than he could drown. I saw a child fall into a river like this once. It’s an ugly way to die. 

The wolf paddled desperately at the slushy water, its claws raking the ice around it, shredding it even more surely than its weight had done. I kept pushing myself forward on my belly, more confident now that I felt Charles’ hand tight around my ankle. Maybe I could get him by the scruff, as if he were a pup, and haul him back out. 

I tried to take hold of him, but once again I heard the crackling –

\--then the world was cold. There was no up, no down, no anything but cold biting through my flesh down to my bones. I thrashed in the water, got my face above the surface to breathe, but I could hardly think. Next to me the wolf churned and yowled, more panicked than it had been before. 

Charles shouted, “Raven, Raven, I’ve got you!” And it was true, he did, still by the ankle. So I wouldn’t drown. But I could freeze sure enough.

Behind him I saw Henry running toward us, a heavy skein of rope in his hands. “Get Charles!” I cried to him. I’d get the wolf.

So I threw my arms around the wolf. Not knowing a rescue when it had one, the damned thing snapped at me with its teeth and scraped at me with its claws. Had I not been numbed with cold, it would have hurt too much to bear, but as it was I could hang on well enough.

“Hold on to her!” Henry had the rope slung around Charles’ feet now and was hauling him backward. As Charles went, he towed me along. The ice kept breaking around me and the wolf, but it scarce mattered so long as we neared the shore. Finally the wolf’s paws found purchase, and I could roll to one side onto ground and not ice.

My body began to shiver so that I thought my chattering teeth would nip off my tongue, but Henry was there with a dry cloak, wrapping me up in it and in his arms. I rested my head against his chest, too weary even to say thank you.

Next to us, the wolf lay there trembling miserably. Charles folded himself around it, whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re safe.”

But none of us were safe, and we had no plan now – none at all. 


	22. The Falconer -- Part Six

For the first time in nearly two years, Erik came to himself without a sense of being cold.

He realized this was because he was wrapped in blankets, more blankets than he’d thought they had with them. Clutching at these covers, grateful and confused at once, he opened his eyes –

\--and saw Charles.

That moment. That one moment of dawn when day and night were shared, the only space they two could both inhabit: This morning they had caught it. 

Charles looked disheveled, pale, weary – it had to have been a difficult night – but when their eyes met, he smiled. Erik knew the wonder in his heart was reflected in Charles’ own. Sometimes he thought they both lived for this.

_More beautiful than I remembered,_ Erik thought. He always thought this, always commanded himself to etch the image within his mind forever, yet somehow the sight of Charles was new to him each time.  The blue of his eyes, the darkness of his mouth, every line of him seemed to happen to Erik all over again.

Erik reached out with one hand, hoping against hope. They’d never managed this but if they could, only once –

In the instant before their fingers would have touched, Charles was gone.

The transformation was no earthly thing – it wasn’t as though Charles suddenly shrank or sprouted wings or any such. One moment the man was there; in the next, vision no longer seemed to answer, and it was as though both man and bird existed in that blur; then the hawk flapped its wings and, unknowing, flew away.

Erik sat there, hand still outstretched toward nothing. His breath hitched in his throat, but he bit back the emotion, forcing himself not to give in.

His fingers closed around the now-abandoned robe beside him. Slowly Erik lifted the cloth to his face and breathed in the scent of Charles’ skin. When he was again calm, he turned his attention back to the blankets he was swaddled in. These were far more than they’d carried with them, or could have carried. Had Raven taken to thieving in the night? Tossing on his breeches and shirt, Erik got to his feet to look for her. If she had indeed stolen the blankets, he wasn’t sure whether he’d chastise her or pray she’d picked up a few more useful items as well.

But as he walked, he saw other things – a length of rope, a sack, and what looked to be some sort of a makeshift net. Erik frowned. What had gone on the night before?

Then he saw Raven, curled on one side, sound asleep beneath yet another blanket, and stretched beside her –

“Henry,” he growled. Almost instantly both Henry and Raven stirred.

“Christ’s nails,” Raven said groggily. “We missed dawn.”

“Would you have stolen away?” Erik demanded. “Sneak in here for a few hours swyving your new lady, then skulked off before I could catch you at it?”

Henry looked more shocked than any man ought to after being caught sleeping by a woman’s side. “Swy – no, no, there was no such – Raven would never – ” 

“I would but you never asked me. Not yet, anyway.” Raven smiled, then winced in pain.

Erik didn’t know why she hurt, nor did he care. “I see here a net. A sack. Rope. Your tools, Henry? You were the one following us, I take it. And what did you hope to catch in your net?”

“You.” Henry held up his hands. “Please, listen.”

“ _Me_? You tried to catch me in a _net_?” He had been angry before, but now Erik was livid. The gall of this boy, with his deceit and his lies, and it was his fault, everything that had happened to Charles was this boy’s fault – wait. “Charles cannot have known of this.”

“He knew,” Raven said. Her hands were pressed against her chest. “He didn’t like it, but he agreed it had to be done, because you won’t listen to reason!”

There was only one possible motive for Charles to have done such a thing. “You broke your word. You told him of Henry’s madness about a day without night, a night without day.”

She was not chastened. “Yes! I did! And he says Henry does know how to predict an eclipse, so it’s worth trying, and if you won’t agree to try then you’ve got to be made to go along with it.” 

“Both of you,” Erik snarled. “Get away from me this instant. Henry, take this cheap, traitorous bit of baggage with you, and make what use of her you will before she robs you blind. Go before I take up my sword.”

Henry sprang to his feet, not to escape, but in defiance. “Will you hurt her again, Erik? Have you not cut her flesh enough?”

“What do you mean? I have never – ”

Erik’s words died in his throat as he realized that Raven’s hands concealed bloody tears in her gown. Slowly she uncovered herself, and he saw the vicious claw marks scoring her skin. He had nearly torn her to shreds.

“Let me tell you how that happened,” Henry said. “You fell through the ice on the river, and would have frozen or drowned, had Raven not plunged in herself to save you. Dumb brute that you were, you fought her the whole time, but she never let you go. She risked her life for yours, and this is how you repay her. Which of you is cheap? Which of you is the traitor?” 

_I did not ask you to do that. You were trying to trap me in a net._ His protests would not become words. Erik sagged against the nearest tree, repulsed by the sight of the violence he had done as the wolf.  Overhead he heard the flapping of wings and knew the hawk was near. 

Raven’s voice shook. “Erik, you said – you said it was hope that destroyed a man. Maybe it is for you, but not for Charles. Hope is his lifeblood. For you it’s – your anger, or your strength, I can never tell, but it’s different for Charles. And it isn’t hope for himself he needs most. More than anything else, he needs to have hope for you.” 

No one spoke for many moments more. At last Erik said, “How badly is she hurt?”

Henry did not at first realize he was the one being spoken to, no doubt because Erik had spoken politely. “There are many cuts, but I washed them with wine and applied a salve that should ward off infection.”

“I can travel,” Raven said. “And I can answer for myself, too.”

Erik ignored this. Already he sensed the outline of their plan; still he thought it was madness. Even if Charles were correct, and eclipses could be predicted, who could say whether that would have the effect of breaking the curse? Sorcery was a dark and mysterious business, revealing its secrets only to those in league with the devil … and, despite everything, Erik did not believe Henry to be among that number. 

He began this to get his revenge against the bishop, rather than let him go to Avignon as a cardinal. At that time Erik had believed he could do no better than leaving the bishop’s heart for Charles to find at sundown. The idea still resonated within him, deeper than any hunger.

But if what Charles needed was hope – even a false hope, even one built on so wild and untenable a premise as this – then Erik would give him that instead.

“A net,” he said. “A sack. Useless. Come on, then. I’ll show you how to cage a wolf.” 


	23. The Cleric -- Part Four

Charles sat in the back of a wagon they had hired, the hood of his robe pulled up over his head, staring at the wolf. 

It stood miserably in its cage – the cage Erik had helped to build himself, then crawled into at dusk to await his transformation. So Raven and Henry had sworn, and Charles had to believe them, yet took his breath away to think of the trust Erik had shown.

_I’m so sorry you must endure this_ , he thought, looking at the beast hanging its head behind the wooden bars. _God grant me the power to free us both._

Henry sat in the front, driving his horse and Blackbird, who were doing their best to manage being harnessed in tandem. Under his breath, he whispered, “We’re almost there.”

This much Charles had already known; only this close to the bishop’s keep were there both so many people around at this early hour – and such an overwhelming sense of dread. Merchants who would soon open their stalls trudged slowly uphill, heavy burdens on their backs. Guardsmen were everywhere, swaggering about with a belligerence Charles didn’t remember from the days when Erik was in charge. Many monks walked along the roads, hurrying to the last prayers of Matins – including a couple of familiar faces.  Charles shrank further down in his seat, pulling the cowl of his food forward to better disguise his face. 

“It’s like you can feel the bishop breathing down your neck already.” Raven hugged herself against the chill.

“Let’s not imagine Bishop Sebastian even more powerful than he is,” Charles said, feigning a courage he didn’t feel. “Go over it with me again.”

“We’ve been over it a dozen times!”

“Again. Just to put my mind at ease.” 

Raven sighed. “We’ve been sent ahead by Azazel, we’ll say – and they’ll know no better, because nobody could have dug him up yet even if there were a person to miss him, and I bet there’s not.  We’ll say that he sent this wolf for the bishop and follows with the other prisoners the bishop sought, which is funny, since really that would be us.” 

“Bishop Sebastian will see us alone.” He murmured this more to himself than to Raven. “When we have that first moment with him, without the guards, we must act. Take him prisoner, keep him quiet, and hang on for dawn. It can’t be long now.”

“You’re sure we’ll get him by himself? He’s got more guards than a dog’s got fleas.” Raven turned to the cage. “No offense, Erik.” The wolf whined.

“Yes. The bishop likes to savor his personal triumphs. And if he let too many people know the truth of his character, the veil of sanctity he uses to cover his crimes would be ripped away. He’ll want to inspect the wolf on his own. That gives us our chance.” _Our only chance._

The whole night long, Charles had come to fear this moment more and more. By what right did he risk Erik’s life for this mad chance? If anything went wrong, they would be in the bishop’s keep, utterly trapped. Even Erik’s plan to assassinate the man, foolhardy as it was, had been more likely to succeed. But if there were any hope of breaking the curse – of freeing Erik forever from the bonds that enslaved him, only because he had cared for Charles – then it had to be done. They simply had to hope that they could either force the bishop to see them both at dawn or, more likely, hold out until the eclipse, which according to Henry’s calculations was likely to take place early in the day.

He’d had no chance to review Henry’s calculations for himself. If they got this wrong, both he and Erik would be made to suffer horribly, and Raven had been right, he really did feel the bishop breathing down his neck … 

_Stop it._ Charles steadied himself as best he could.

As the wagon wheels creaked and jostled over hard stones, he attempted a moment’s diversion.  Pitching his voice low, he said to Raven, “So, you seem rather pleased to see our young alchemist again.” 

Charles had expected her to be coy, the way most young girls would be. By now he should have understood that she wasn’t like anyone else. “He’s awfully handsome,” she said, grinning over her shoulder at Henry, who was too occupied with the horses to pay them any heed. “Clever, but not prideful about it. And he’s kind. I think I could do with a kind man. Lord knows I’ve tried the other sort, and they’re no good at all.” 

“I agree.” To think that once he’d been so angry with Henry that he could hardly think straight. Now the idea of his best student falling in love with this reckless, goodhearted girl made him smile. They might be good for each other, he thought, in the way that opposites sometimes were.

In the way that he and Erik might have been – 

Henry’s horse shied, unhappy to have a partner, and the cart rattled precariously. Charles caught the edges of the wolf’s cage so that it wouldn’t topple. Raven reached into their bag of provisions. “He’s unhappy. Here, we’ve got this apple left. Might as well use it to coax the horses on.”

Charles nodded in agreement. He was far too nervous to eat. 

She hopped from the wagon, hood falling away from her face as she walked toward the horses. Only a moment later, Charles heard someone shout, “It’s her!” 

“Well, well, well. The Raven. Thought you could slip by under our noses, hmm?” 

He heard her take off running, feet pounding against the dirt, and the galloping of hooves as the soldiers came to surround their quarry. They didn’t seem to be interested in the wagon at all – assuming, no doubt, she had hopped along to catch a ride en route, the way vagabonds sometimes did.

“No!” Henry whispered, and moved as though to abandon the wagon and run after her. 

Immediately Charles saw that he had two options. The first was to urge Henry to remain here, to leave Raven to her fate, and to take their one and only chance against Bishop Sebastian.

The other was to save Raven now – at the cost of his life.

Immediately he unlatched the cage. The wolf looked up at him, not trusting its liberty. So Charles pushed the framework forward sharply, dumping the scrambling wolf onto the ground. _Forgive me, my love. This may damn you to the curse forever. But you’ll live. You’ll have a chance. That’s more than Raven would have if I left her here._

Charles then stood up and shouted, “I’m the one you seek!”

If the soldiers did not know him on sight, they recognized what they had the moment they sighted the wolf. As they began riding toward the wagon, Henry said, “Charles, no.” 

“I’ll say we paid you to bring us. They won’t doubt it.”  

All would be well – but no. The wolf wasn’t running away. Instead it set itself in a crouch, growling savagely at the riders coming to threaten Charles. 

“Go!” Charles took one of his shoes and threw it at the wolf, hoping cruelty might drive it from his side. “Get out of here! You have to go!”

A beast could not be reasoned with. A beast only knew what it loved, and what danger was, and could set its life between the two. Charles was powerless to stop him. As the riders pounded closer, surrounding them both, he realized he had doomed Erik along with himself.

In the distance he saw Raven – now unobserved – running as fast as she could into the distance. No doubt he would never see her again. She would live out her days somewhere else, getting into and out of trouble. But she would live. 

He and Erik would die.

Their happiness had been lost long ago, after all. At least their sacrifice could grant happiness to one other. 

A vast sorrow settled on Charles as he looked down at the wolf, now surrounded by the points of spears. A sword was held to his own throat, but that he hardly noticed.

He whispered, “I’m so sorry, my love.” 


	24. The Bishop -- Part Three

Bishop Sebastian had long awaited this moment, and yet nothing had prepared him for the thrill of seeing the cell door open and glimpsing – there, in one corner, paler but no less beautiful for two years gone – Charles.

From the next cell he heard the wolf snarling, but this he paid no mind. Only Charles’ wide blue eyes concerned him now. 

“Home at last,” the bishop said.

“This is not my home.” Charles seemed determined to put up a brave front. Good. It would be all the more satisfying when that bravery finally broke down. 

“Your home is wherever I am,” the bishop replied, “or it will be, for the remainder of your very short life.”

“I’ve had only half a life for two years now. It is no great sorrow to abandon the other half and at last go to our Lord in paradise.”

The bishop smiled thinly. “Then you won’t mind watching me kill the wolf?”

Silence. Charles’ hands clenched at his sides, as though he were imagining some act of futile violence. _Let him try,_ Sebastian thought. _Let him try, and I shall wrestle him down until his body lies beneath mine._  

“Not that I’m in any rush.” He stepped closer to Charles, savoring every moment of anticipation. “There are ways to extend suffering for hours on end. My men even know how to flay a man and keep him alive. Do you think their tricks would work on a wolf? You’ll see for yourself, because of course I intend for you to watch.”

“Please don’t,” Charles said. It was like watching a soul split open. “I beg you.”  

“Perhaps I won’t, if you satisfy me. But you’ll have to work very, very hard to satisfy me, I warn you now.” Sebastian traced one fingertip along the side of Charles’ face and enjoyed watching him fight the urge to flinch. Already he could imagine how it would go – shifting between tortures for the wolf and every perversion he could invent with Charles. Probably Charles could be made to do anything if he thought it would allow the wolf a few more minutes without pain, or even a swift death. 

Charles swallowed hard. “If I – if I said that I would do your bidding, not at knifepoint but willingly, forever after, would you end the curse? Let Erik go. If you want, I will repudiate him. Just let him go off and lead his life, far away from here. I would follow you to Avignon. Wherever you chose. Even if you wouldn’t end the curse – if you would just set Erik free.” 

“You have much to learn about the art of negotiation, Charles. The first lesson? You can’t bargain with something your enemy already possesses, and I already possess you. Shall I prove it to you now?” 

“You haven’t time,” Charles said, voice shaking. It took the bishop a moment to realize what he meant. Dawn was near, and Charles’ trembling was not from fear, but from the very beginning of the change. 

Sebastian had not witnessed the transformation since the moment he had first cast the curse. Like any knowledgeable servant of the devil, he feared his own tools. Quickly he stepped back, trying to cover his own unease. “Tonight, then. We will have all the hours of darkness together – and I shall have the day with Erik. Shall I visit him with pain? Or should I use him as I intend to use you, so he might know what lies ahead for his hawk come nightfall?”

Charles turned his head away, and the bishop was able to smile again. 

This cell was small – not nearly large enough for everything Sebastian had planned. He’d have to order the guards to bring Charles and the wolf to his private chambers. All the implements he needed were already there; it was more convenient having them to hand. But for now he’d leave the prisoners in these cells: tiny, cramped, at the very top of the tower.

“Was it worth it? Betraying me?” The bishop thought it a rhetorical question. 

“Yes.”

Bishop Sebastian stared. “What did you say?”

“It was worth it to betray you – no, because I never betrayed you. To betray a person you must have some love for them, and I never had that for you. It was worth it to love Erik. Even though we had so short a time, even though you have cursed us for it, I am glad to have loved him. Erik’s love is the one true happiness I have ever known, and I thank God that it was mine, even for so short a time. You will tear us apart now, I imagine, in every way bodies and souls can be torn. But you will never rob me of my love for him. You don’t have the power. No one ever could.” 

“You will damn his very name before I am done with you!” Tortures bubbled in the bishop’s mind, with a stink and a shine like boiling oil. “Foolish boy, ever to return here.” 

Charles actually smiled. “It wasn’t foolish. We failed, yes, but at least we tried. You wanted to write our fates for us, and we didn’t let you. It was better to fight you and fail than to meekly accept the curse. That’s what I never saw until now – what Erik taught me.”

The bishop wanted to sneer, but could not. He believed in souls; he had traded away his own long before. 

Instead he drew himself up, readying himself to wait. “You do not yet understand what it means to fight me and lose. Come night, you will learn, and I will enjoy the lesson.”   

Even as he spoke, Charles shuddered, then stumbled back to kneel upon the floor. The change was on him now. Sebastian willed himself to watch, terrible though it would be, because he needed Charles to finally understand who had won.

 


	25. The Falconer - Part Seven

Never was there a worse moment in Erik’s life than that morning – coming to himself in a cell, hearing the bishop laugh at him from a chamber nearby where the hawk fluttered desperately, seeking an impossible escape.  Bishop Sebastian attempted to taunt him, but Erik swore as violently and loudly as he could, with all the strength in his body, until finally the bishop shrugged and left.

“I’ll tend to you later,” he said as he departed. “First I must say Lauds.”

Erik would have beaten the door with his fists, but it would do no good. He was naked, cold, and trapped. 

“What went wrong?” Erik whispered. The hawk fluttered at the small window between their cells; it wanted to be near him, but could not reach. There was no saying what had come of their plan, feeble though it had been, but he could imagine any number of ways it might have broken down. Even if there were an eclipse, they would pass it separated, sharing only the knowledge of their imminent deaths. The pain of it was unendurable – and he thought at least, perhaps, Charles might not have to endure it. “Dear God in heaven, give me the strength. Give me the strength to do what I must.”

He thought of his first glimpse of a young monk, who had been smiling at a traveling juggler’s act. Thought of countless “arguments” held on afternoon strolls or over a cup of ale, each of them bending toward one another as they spoke. Of a handful of kisses too long ago, but still as sweet in Erik’s mouth as any wine. Of a room of words and drawings that he had come to think of as the illustration of love itself. 

When he thought he could manage, Erik went to the small window; it was narrow, and barred, but he could get his hands through. The hawk flew to him, alighting awkwardly on one wrist.

If he could just lower that hand – use the other to reach up and stroke the hawk’s head, a touch it knew and would accept – then wringing its neck would be the work of an instant. 

Erik wanted to weep, but there would be time for that later. After. All he could do now was spare Charles the horrors to come from the bishop. 

_This is the final message I write, in the last of the ink, on the only remaining stone. That I loved you enough to do this. To take the death you will be spared. I hope in heaven you will see this and know it for what it is. This is my last gift, Charles. It is all I have left to give._

He braced himself, took a deep breath –

\--when the drain in his cell popped open. 

Startled, Erik turned, and the bird flapped away.  In wonderment he watched as a figure slithered through the tiny opening, somehow squeezing through her entire body.

“There!” Raven sat on the edge, pulled up her feet, and grinned. Then she clasped her hands to her bosom and looked heavenwards. “You have seen fit to preserve them again, my Lord. What a great and glorious destiny they must have. I look forward to discovering it.”

“Raven? How did you -- ?”

“Like you said before, I’m the only one who ever got out. That meant I knew how to get back in.” She pushed her hair back from her face and got to her feet. Her eyes raked over his nudity, and her grin broadened. “Too bad I brought you a shirt and breeches.”

“Give them here.” Erik grabbed the clothing from her and threw it on. “What happened last night?” 

“Your plan worked wonderfully – for you two. But I was recognized. Charles gave himself up to save me. I – I never imagined anyone doing such as that, not for me. Then I knew I could break back into the keep. I could stare the bishop down myself, if that was what it took to save you both. Though of course I’d rather we got out of here without meeting the bishop, as he’s a wicked man with an ugly face and one whose company I’m in no rush for.”

_Charles, you noble fool._ But Erik was not angry; instead he felt his courage returning to him, unfurling like a flag.  “We must meet the bishop. We must find him, and either he will die at my hand or Henry’s eclipse will save us yet.” 

“It will, I know it!” She flushed at the mere mention of Henry’s name. Young love. “Is that the hawk in the next cell?”

“It is.”  Erik began thinking logistically, which was discouraging. Raven might somehow have fit her form through the narrow passageways within the tower, but there was no way he could do likewise. How were they to get to the hawk, and what would they do about the guards who no doubt lingered downstairs? 

Then he heard the commotion outside. Shouting, and yelps, and the crashing of metal –

Then the door swung open. There stood Henry, one of the guards’ swords in his hand. Behind him were at least a dozen monks, all of whom looked equally bewildered, hopeful and resolute.

_These were Henry’s friends, before. And Charles’ friends, too. He went to them for help, and they came._

“It has not been my habit to regard most monks as true men of God,” Erik said hoarsely. “I see I must reconsider.”

“The bishop does the devil’s work,” Henry said. He was breathless from his dash up the stairs. “He must be stopped. At last we have a way. Raven got me within the keep, and then I was able to find the brothers who were here for Matins, and now – now we must hurry, for Lauds is near and the eclipse will shortly follow.” 

Erik still did not know whether he believed any man could know the coming of an eclipse, or that Henry truly understood the bishop’s dark sorcery well enough to discover how to break their curse. But he knew he had been a prisoner and now was free, that Charles had been doomed but now had hope.

He held out his hand. “Give me a sword.”

 

**

 

They hurried down the stairs to the small chapel where the bishop would be saying Lauds. As they crowded into the antechamber, Erik whispered, “Here? You’re certain?”

“Here.” Henry seemed happier now that the sword was in Erik’s keeping rather than his own. “This is where he will come to remove his vestments, after prayers. We can surround him, keep him here. The eclipse should shortly follow.” 

Erik glanced up at the one stained-glass window allowing light into this chamber. The beams still streamed through brightly.

He pushed his doubts aside; this was not the time for hesitation. “Raven, I want you to wait with Charles in the passage outside. It’s too dangerous for him here. If I fail, or if the eclipse comes to naught, then you will have some chance to get him to safety.”

She nodded. Draped as she was in one of the monk’s cloaks, she could pass easily among those who dwelled or worked within the bishop’s keep. “I’ll lift my arm to the sky, and he’ll fly free, won’t he?”

“Pray God.” Erik brushed his finger along the side of the hawk’s wing. Though it shifted restlessly on Raven’s arm, it showed no sign of breaking away. 

From within the chapel he heard a few words of Latin chanted in a way that made all the monks stand up straighter. “Lauds is ended,” Henry whispered. 

To Raven Erik said, “Go.” She nodded and hurried off, bird well in hand.  

Now. One way or another, he would have his justice now.

Quickly he flattened himself on the other side of the door, as did the holy brothers. It swung open – the bishop walked through alone, casually adjusting his mitre – and Eric nodded to Henry, who pushed the chapel door shut.

Startled, Bishop Sebastian turned – not fast enough to keep Erik from touching the sword to his throat. 

“Don’t move,” Erik said, allowing himself to grin; he knew it to be his most fearsome expression. “Don’t move one inch.”

The bishop didn’t move, but his face showed none of the fear Erik would have hoped for. As Henry and the monks moved to bar the door, he said, “Well, well. We have an uprising on our hands.” 

“Cry out once and you shall regret it,” Erik warned.

“If you meant to kill me, surely you would have done so already.” Bishop Sebastian’s smile was thin. “I can’t imagine why you don’t mean to do it, but obviously you don’t. Perhaps a remnant of your religious duty has lingered to tell you what would become of the immortal soul of a bishop’s murderer?”

“You are a bishop in no more than name, and the Lord God knows it. You are a sorcerer and an ally of Satan. Your killer will sit beside God’s throne in heaven!” 

“That won’t be you.” The bishop turned his attention to the monks huddled between him and freedom. If anyone in the chapel beyond had realized there was a problem, nobody had yet taken action. “I see I shall have to have the monastery torn down stone by stone, and its heretic brothers boiled one by one. Will you go first, young Henricus? Your screams will teach the others how to fear.” 

Henry said, “Any moment now. Any moment.”

Bishop Sebastian laughed. He honestly seemed to believe Erik hesitated out of conscience or fear – and not to suspect their true plan. “Yes. Any moment now you’ll realize what fools you were to go against me. You know of the curse I levied upon Erik of Lancashire and your wayward Brother Charles. Imagine what I could do to each of you.”

More black magic: It was the one thing Erik had never thought to fear, believing as he did that he had already endured the worst. What horrors were yet to be revealed?

At that moment, though, the light through the stained glass window began to dim. 

“It’s begun,” Henry said. “Our charts were correct! It’s begun!”

“What, a cloud across the sun?” the bishop snapped.

But the dark became more and more profound, casting the chamber into a gloom leavened only by a dozen flickering candles. Bishop Sebastian’s face finally betrayed the first shadow of doubt. 

Was it possible? If Henry was right about the eclipse, then – the spell – 

“Erik?” 

Slowly, without moving his blade from the bishop’s throat, Erik half turned his head and saw Charles.

This much he had glimpsed before – Charles in his robe, caught in a sort of twilight stillness. But Charles walked toward him, equally disbelieving, the moment not ending but going on and on. For the first time in two years they were together as men. A slow smile dawned on Charles face, and he held out one hand to Erik, who took it without ever budging from where he stood, or letting his sword hand move an inch.

“A day without night,” Erik whispered. “A night without day.”

Charles did not speak to him again. Instead he spoke to the bishop. “Look on us.”

Erik turned back to see that the bishop had shut his eyes. He pushed forward with the sword just far enough to see a bead of blood appear at the tip. “Look on us now, you coward, you weakling. Open your eyes and see!” 

The bishop opened his eyes.  He saw them standing side by side.

Suddenly the very darkness seemed to writhe around them. Erik knew – without understanding how he knew – that the shadows had been joined by the black magic once within his body and Charles’. It swirled through the room, then settled over Bishop Sebastian, who screamed. Again. Once again –

\--then there was no more sound. There was the familiar blur to Erik’s vision – the moment of the transformation – _no, no, not again!_

But it was the bishop who was no longer there. One moment they had been looking at his human form; now they stared down at a snake crawling upon the ground. 

“The magic went into him who cast it,” Henry said, somewhat breathlessly. “He has been transformed into the creature that represents his loathsome soul. As he cursed one of you by day, the other by night – he will remain in this form day and night both, all the rest of his life.”

Erik let the sword drop to his side. Even seeing what he had seen, he could not yet trust what had happened. Then he realized the sun was brightening again; the eclipse was ending.

He turned to Charles, tightening his grip on his hand. “Hold on. Stay with me.” 

Charles nodded, and wrapped his other hand around Erik’s, too, as if he thought he might literally be snatched away.

They stood there, shafts of light streaming down through the window, painting Charles in red and gold. He didn’t change; neither did Erik. Slowly Erik began to smile, and Charles did too. 

“It’s over,” Charles said. “It’s really over.”

Erik pulled Charles into his embrace. For a long moment neither of them could speak; they simply held on to one another, laughing through tears. He breathed in the scent of Charles’ skin, knew the weight of him in his arms.

Henry spoke first. “What shall we tell the others?”

“That the bishop went into the hills to pray,” said one of the monks. “On a long-overdue spiritual quest. They will look for him, and he will not be found – or missed.” 

“Then what do we do with that?” Henry gestured at the snake with his boot.

“I know.” Raven stepped forward then; she must have been on the fringes of the room all the while. With her foot she nudged the writhing snake across the floor, over and over, until it fell through the drain-grate with a plop. Then she called down, “Enjoy the sewers, your Grace!”

Still folded in Erik’s embrace, Charles nestled his head against the curve of Erik’s neck. Suddenly Erik was shot through with desire – two years’ worth, pent up, never fulfilled. His hands wove through Charles’ hair, but he could not speak. 

Raven again proved her wisdom. “Now we’ll go out and start spreading the word about the bishop’s spiritual quest. While we’re at it, could you announce I’ve been pardoned?”

“Yes.” Henry fell in beside her, helping to usher all the others out of the chamber. “Pardons for all three of you. Do you think the guards will argue?”

Raven laughed. “Never. They hated the bishop too!”

The door swung shut. Erik and Charles were alone, and there was nothing between them any longer, nothing between them and one searing, perfect kiss. 


	26. How It Began

They consummated their passion at that very place and moment.

Together they twined naked on the bishop’s abandoned white vestments. Their kisses only grew fiercer with each instant, as though they had not known the fullness of their hunger until they could be fed. Every touch seemed more exhilarating, more necessary than the last.

Charles had never lain with anyone before, and Erik would not put him to any further pain. Instead they locked their bodies thigh to thigh, each sheltering and pleasuring the other. Then there was only the heat of their joined bodies, the taste of their kisses, their breaths growing more ragged and their groans turning into cries. Charles held Erik’s head between his hands, looked at the radiant light filling the arches overhead, and thanked God that they had lived to share this moment. Erik pressed his lips to Charles’ neck, felt his pulse beating against his lips, and thought no paradise could compare. Then, within heartbeats of one another, they shouted out, complete and content at last. 

At first, in the aftermath, they laughed and kissed and smiled wordlessly. But the warmth of their coupling faded, as did the blaze of hatred they had shared for the bishop. They had burned him away, this man who had stood between them, and now they were alone together … for the first time in two years.

Never had they dared hope for this moment. Neither knew what to say. In some ways they were still almost strangers. 

Yes, they had written countless words on the walls of their secret room – but some of those words were written in anger, expressing only the need to escape from their cruel situation. And neither of them had ever written the word _love._

It was Charles who broke the silence. “What happens now?” 

Erik shrugged and reached for his cloak. He thought only to cover himself from the chill; Charles thought it was meant as an ending, and reached for his robes as well. “The bishop’s influence will vanish as soon as others realize he will not return. He’ll turn into a story to scare children at bedtime. No one will care to come after us. We may each do as we wish.” 

How little he realized what dark meaning Charles would read into one word, _each_.

Charles answered, “I’ll go back home, of course, but you – what will you do?”

He meant only to set Erik free as gently as possible, but it was perceived as cruelly as any blow.

“I don’t yet know,” Erik finally said. They were no longer meeting one another’s eyes. “I never dared hope for this. I suppose anything is possible.”

“Anything. You can pursue any fate or fortune now.”

“Yes.”

Again they fell quiet. 

Each tried to be happy for the other. Erik thought of Charles finally taking over his estates as he ought to have done two years prior, serving as the wise steward and lord he had the potential to be. Charles thought of Erik traveling abroad, perhaps to France to fight alongside the king, where no doubt he would earn glory. Neither thought any honor beyond the other’s reach. Yet their hearts were breaking. 

“It will not be easy,” Erik said. “Beginning again. We are outcast. Forgotten.”

Charles managed to smile. “Therefore we are free.” 

“Free,” Erik repeated. Even now the word was sweet.

Slowly, Charles stood and straightened his robe. “You will – maybe you could let me where you are going. Write me a letter, even. I will pay whatever fee. I could paint it on the wall. To finish it.” Though in his soul he could not imagine feeling they were done. Charles foresaw long years to come when he would sit in the room of words, reading every line Erik had ever written as though it might call him back again.

It was thinking of the room that broke Erik. When he realized he would never be there again – never even have that glimmer of Charles’ presence – he knew the depth of his own grief for the first time, and he spoke.

“I know you have repented of me. Often I damned the day I met you. But now – “ His voice caught before he could continue. “Now we have our freedom, yet I cannot walk away.” 

Charles went still. He hardly dared believe he understood. “You mean – the life we have led – you would choose it again?”

Erik began to feel the first stirrings of hope bearing him onward; it was as though he were a ship with sails furling full. “Not the life we have led until now, shamed and cursed. I meant the life I imagined for us, when I awoke in the soft bed you made for me, or read the words you wrote. That is what I would choose.” When Charles did not immediately answer, though, Erik feared the worst and quickly added, “But you must make your own choice. You deserve every liberty, every joy, and I will not begrudge you your decision, whatever it may be.”

“Can you question what I would choose?” Charles whispered.

Erik knew what he wanted to believe, but he wanted it too badly to trust it. His mind would so gladly deceive him to offer even the faintest shred of hope for this. “Tell me.”

Charles stepped closer to Erik, turning his face upward. “I have come to love the shadow of you. The mere hope of you. I know the empty places left in a world without you, and I will not endure them again.” His face lit up, a smile containing more bliss than Erik had ever before seen, or Charles had ever before felt. “If it is my choice to make, then I choose never to leave your side. Never, until the end of my days. My heart is your heart, and my life belongs to you from this moment forward.”

“I can hardly believe it.” Slowly Erik began to smile too. "Is this happiness possible?" 

“We know now, anything is possible.”

Then Erik kissed Charles, and for a long time there was no more need for words.

At last they stood in each other’s embrace, folded close. Charles murmured, “I know you more profoundly than I have ever known another soul, and yet you are new to me. Wonderfully new.”

Erik laughed and kissed Charles’ hair. “We will have to become accustomed to one another.” His voice was thoughtful. “You and I, we’ve never known quieter times. The harder times. Long winter weeks when it’s too cold to stir outside, and the fire smokes, and we must pretend, evening after evening, never to have heard each other’s stories before.” 

“If we could answer this challenge, then we can answer that one.” Charles pressed his hands against Erik’s broad chest. “I will ask you to tell me all your stories a hundred times, only so I can hear your voice.” 

Though Erik smiled, some wariness lingered. “You have other obligations. Your family – you are the last of your line. Someday you must take a wife, produce an heir.”

“Not if another heir turns up.”

“What do you mean?”

To Erik’s consternation, Charles began to laugh, delighted with his new idea – and with all the possibilities for their life together, which shone down with all the brilliance and color of the sun through the stained glass window. “You’ll see. You’ll see everything. Now, come outside with me. I want to stand in the light once more.” 

Erik took his hand, and together they walked out into the day.  Charles blinked against the brightness of it, yet his smile was even brighter.

A bird flew overhead. Charles stared after it, half in wonder. Erik said, “I meant to ask you – what did it feel like, to fly?”

Charles brought Erik’s hand to his lips and kissed it, then folded it against his heart. “Like this. Flying felt like this.” 


	27. Epilogue -- The Thief

And that’s how I became a lady.

Me, a great lady? Truly you might laugh, and I would not blame you, for it seems like no more than a fine joke. When Charles first suggested it, I thought for certain he was not in his right mind. Who would ever believe me as the daughter of a great lord of the land, even a bastard daughter at that? But he said people would believe it if he said it was true, and he has even put it down in writing. Although I am not yet very good at reading, Henry has taught me enough that I can make out my name, and his, and know that Charles has indeed sworn I am his sister.  When the day comes for Henry and me to have a son, that child will be Charles’ heir. 

Perhaps I seem as unlikely a mother as a lady, but I begin to think I will enjoy having a little one of my own. Never had I any use for a babe before, but that was when I thought of it as a babe like any other. Now that I think of it as Henry’s son or daughter, as a part of him and me together – well, that sounds very nice indeed.

Henry thought I would not take well to marriage. He asked me rather seriously if I were of a mind to settle down, whether I did not prefer my wild life on my own as thief, for he would never wish to stand between me and any of my joys. He is so good, my Henry.

But I told him that was foolish talk. Only someone who had never lived as a thief could think it a life worth the having. Besides, I asked him, what did he think I was trying to steal all that time, were it not the chance to sleep in a warm bed, eat my fill, and know myself safe? 

At first, I admit, it was strange living in the same place always.  But Charles said his home was our home, and we accepted his offer even before we realized what sort of a home he meant. Yes, I knew he was the heir to an estate, but such an estate!  Where we dwell is more castle than house. Dozens of rooms, I swear it, so I might sleep in a different one from time to time, if ever I begin feeling the urge to wander.

I don’t, though. There is much here to interest me. Henry and Charles have built a great laboratory for their alchemical work, and while I have not the patience to undertake such studies myself, every so often I enjoy hearing of their discoveries or simply watching them at it, making flasks bubble and steam. Other days I spend with either Moira or Erik. Moira is a Scotswoman who has the keeping of Charles’ house, and she is both funny and fierce, a very good friend to have. She, too, is newly a wife, and so we talk much about how best to manage men so they do not notice the management. 

Erik continues the work he began during the years he was cursed, which is running much of Charles’ estate. Though Charles does his part, Erik is better at making sure the farmers are not stealing one another’s livestock or planting on ground meant to lay fallow. You see, Charles would trust everyone; Erik double-checks what people say. Often I ride with him, because I know more of how the common people live and think, and what they need. He says it is high time I proved myself useful at more than getting into mischief; from Erik, that’s glowing praise. We are better friends now than he will ever admit.

No one on the estates or the nearby village questions why Charles doesn’t marry. Perhaps they think it only natural for a man who grew up in a monastery to show no inclination for the company of women. Erik is but one of a dozen who live here, and only those who live here know that he sleeps not in the great hall, but in the bed he shares with Charles, in a room with walls covered by countless painted words.

Well – I say a dozen, but the number grows every few months. It was not so surprising when Charles took in the first foundling, but now word of his soft heart has spread, and I swear this house will soon be overrun with children. Charles loves to teach them, play with them, and just to hear their havoc around the house. Truth be told, the rest of us like it too.

Strangely Erik loves the little ones nearly as much as Charles does. Sometimes he gives them rides on Blackbird. He and Charles are a more fitting pair than it would first seem.

They are happy. Though they bicker – though sometimes their eyes take on a haunted look, recalling the years they lived under the bishop’s curse – their happiness is stronger than their sorrows. What they have, they have earned. 

I did not earn _my_ good fortune, but I am glad of it all the same! 

Henry says that is nonsense, because I went back for Charles and Erik in the end when I need not have done. I say that is only what any god-fearing person would do, no more. No, I have been more lucky than worthy. Lucky is enough.

What I know is that my belly swells and I expect the quickening of Henry’s child any day. That I live, work, dine and sleep with good people I consider friends. That the bishop is still a serpent crawling on his belly through the muck. That we are safe from hunger and want. That Charles and Erik have created a home for all of us, and for each other.

We are loved, every one of us. Anyone so lucky as to have love should get to live and enjoy it – and I do, I do.

 

 

 

THE END


End file.
